World War III - The Threequel

  On 10/20/2016 at 5:33 PM, caze said:

 

  On 10/20/2016 at 2:55 PM, Godwin Austen said:

 

edit: and since EU is now in shambles, it is up for grabbing again; will Putin succeed what Stalin have failed? 

 

 

no, because Russia is in a far far worse state than Europe. Their economy is a mess, if it weren't for their gas and oil revenues there'd be rioting in the streets.

 

And their gas and oil revenues are shrinking, so it's only going to get worse. Since Putin can't pay off the middle class anymore, he uses foreign policy aggressive posturing to placate the nationalists in Russia.

  On 10/21/2016 at 8:48 PM, chenGOD said:

 

he uses foreign policy aggressive posturing to placate the nationalists in Russia.

 

Definitely in the case of Syria. Apart from the international grandstanding aspect of it, I suspect one of the main reasons they got involved in Syria was just to provide a supply of macho military stories to show on the telly to get the NASHI brownshirts all riled up.

I feel that Ukraine is a very diff story though. The background is much murkier and to me it seems more like the Troubles in NI than anything else. Deep socio-cultural divisions within a semi-artificial country that finally boiled over. Note the difference in domestic news coverage between Syria and Ukraine. Of course, getting involved in Ukraine does have the convenient side-effect of making NATO and the EU look weak.

  On 10/21/2016 at 8:48 PM, chenGOD said:

 

Since Putin can't pay off the middle class anymore, he uses foreign policy aggressive posturing to placate the nationalists in Russia.

 

see also state sponsored thuggery during the recent Euro-2016 tournament,

quite the rascal is Mr Putin