[Skybird]

Ironically it needed Putin to push back the Mafia in Russia that emerged - as a consequence from the country's vulnerability to exploitation of that kind when it suddenly tried to become democratic and liberal in the post-Gorbatschow and early Jeltzin-period. So: autocratic Putin's system surely is, a political oligarchy has reformed again, yes, but Mafia-like: no, I still can't see that. The Mafia was/is something else, and Putin dealt brutally with them sometimes (Yukos, for example). I never thought that western-style democracy could be the way to rule a country covering so much ground like Russia, with people of so many different ethnicities, languages, habits and backgrounds. Democracy works in small-sized communities only, the bigger the community, the more corrupting and oligarchic it becomes. I just think that he starts exaggerating it. some of Russia's aggressiveness to the West I can understand, even have predicted (the ongoing pushing of western borders to the East, the planned missile silos in Poland and Chech Republic, etc), but meanwhile it seems to lead beyond that. The Russians would be needed for many international projects and diplomatic attempts, in the security council as well as for example the decisions that need to be made concerning the future of Kosovo. Currently, the EU better forgets Kosovo, Russia will not make any more concessions (in it's perception). that with regard to the EU Russia holds the stronger position in energy-questions does not help to make them more passive again. so I welcome russia, and china as well to play agreater role in global politics, since the US has proven to be unwilling and unable to fill it's unique role after 1989 with a sense of responsebility for all the globe, not just it's own profit interests. That way, recent US policies have left the globe seriously off-balance, and obviously it takes a strong second power on the globe to reestablish sort of a balance. But that will come with a price, too. A cooling of relations may be that.