Glorious Predictionhood!

DR: PANARIN: Insolent Amerikanskii; your decadent empire crumbles as we are speaking!
TRANSLATOR: "Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control." -- WSJ

Hard Baltics vs. Iron Sphere...

<< Georgia part one

Putin's whole endeavor is to install Moscow-friendly regimes in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, in a paranoid rendition of the US campaign against Serbia. In this version, Russia comes to the rescue of aggrieved Russophile minorities, wages a bombing campaign, and calls actions by the small central government ethnic cleansing. Medvedev's aforementioned background provides the final stroke in the US : Serbia :: Russia : Georgia analogy; the lawyer wants Saakashvili in the Hague.

I can see the Ukraine falling, Saakashvili out of a job, etc., but it seems more likely that Poland and the Baltics will not shit themselves with fear. For one, Putin sounds unhinged, comparing Saakashvili to Saddam Hussein:

"Of course Saddam Hussein had to be hung for destroying some Shia villages. And the current Georgian rulers, who wiped ten Ossetian villages off the face of the Earth in an hour, of course they have to be protected."

Ilves of Estonia said "I am a Georgian"...Lech Kaczynski didn't trust Putin's cease-fire yesterday; today that looks pretty wise, as latest reports have Russians moving out of Gori, deeper into Georgia...

Little Lithuania, whose name was tossed around as an alternate missile defense site, and thus has been put on Putin's shitlist unnecessarily, may prove hard core. A few years ago, Russia cut oil to the Meziekiu Nafta refinery, and then set it on fire.



Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus, unmoved, hinted that the train to Kaliningrad would be shut down for "political repairs":

"We should guarantee the safety of trains and passengers," he said, according to the Baltic News Service. "Should repairs be needed in order to increase the safety of railway services, I see no reason to heat up political tensions."

Calmer than you are. Shit to this effect has been going on every other year for what seems like all decade. The Baltics respond to economic pressure in kind; they don't escalate. They don't mass troops on the borders of some nether region, incapable of being taunted into a "Who's got the bolshy yarbles?" contest. DS presumes the Iron Sphere will not expand...

Trying to stay calm...
--
ds

In Putin's Russia, Minister Primes You!

Widely acknowledged lapdog Dmitiri Medvedev unveiled his vision for Russia's foreign policy going forward. By all accounts, it boils down to "Yeah. What he said."

In addition to the expected expansion of powers for the Tsar--ahem--Prime Ministership, Medvedev's foreign policy vision also apparently emphasizes

...the importance of international law, which should come as no surprise given Medvedev's background as a lawyer, Trenin said.

Saints preserve us! The Russians are lecturing us on international law! No surprise, considering that we're building long-term bases and anti-ballistic missile installations in their own backyard. There are also nods to the burgeoning partnership/co-dependent relationship with the European Union and strengthening other international ties. The good folks over at Foreign Policy's Passport blog sum it up nicely:

Russia is officially operating in the post-American world.

Ah, the multi-polar world. Herein lies another major point Obama has to make plain to the American people: the post-Cold War unipolar world America used to squat atop is no more. While Walnuts rambles on about kicking Russia out of the G8 and complains about Kids These Days with their hippity-hop music, the opportunity exists to at least try to show the American people that this nation need not dominate the globe in order to lead it. BHO's international trip will likely focus on that mindset, which is one he's expressed before: America is ready to lead again. Nice slogan. Should garner some good will, while we try to dig ourselves out of the Bushco hole. No surprise he's got a major speech planned in Germany. Germany's a lynchpin in the Russo-EU relationship. One can only hope that the idea of cooperating with other nations--say, alternative energy with the EU; nuclear weapons security and reduction with Russia--will be a better draw for America than Walnuts' Big Stick aspirations.

One more thing:

At the top of the list is ensuring national security, followed by creating the foreign conditions needed to modernize Russia and protect its economic rights.

Hasn't this been Russia's goal since--ohhh--the dawn of the 20th Century? Keep chasing that dream, Russia. You'll always be the Can't Get Right of nations to us.