Spies from the cold - in swarms

[Skybird]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1813562.ece

Think we will see a revival of the good old espionage thriller movies from the 60, 70s and 80s !

I expected that an increasingly stronger Russia would act with more self-confidence on the world scene, and would not accept one-sided pro-West deals anylonger. However, I must admit that maybe I was wrong in estimating how far it would go. Slowly but surely the increasing aggressiveness of Putin's policies (also with regard to energy economy, and press) start to become a concern for me. It's all becoming too much, and too fast. Maybe Putin successfully bluffed me. The German-Russian energy cooperations also threaten not to turn out the way it was expected.

[CCIP]

Cue anti-Russian sentiment in the west in 3... 2... 1...

If the doom and gloom you prophesize is true, then it looks like in the end I may well end up choosing to go back to Russia

[Skybird]

I do not prophesize here. I'm just getting a little bit alarmed. At the time of writing this, Gazprom and Eon clash again in negotiations, and Germany has been target of increased spionage activities, too, and not only economy-spionage. Add to this the anger at the just finished summit, and events inside Russia, and you easily see that the relations are as bad as never before since 1989. I put some trust in advance into Putin and gave him the credit of doubt. Maybe that was wrong. As I said in the past, he seems to be a damn good chess player. Add poker to the list, then.

I have my doubts that all this is just hot air, aiming at the upcoming elections. Call it instinct, maybe (better late than never )

[Camaero]

I don't trust the Russians AT ALL. Putin is one bad dude.

[Happy Times]

Blog for the Russophobes.:p

http://russophobe.blogspot.com/


Good read from today.

http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/...n-history.html

[CCIP]

Our slogan: "Что-то типа Новой Газеты на английском языке."

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Heibges]

When I read the title of the thread I immediately thought of Karla, and low and behold, if in the first line it doesn't mention George Smiley.

If Russia wasn't doing that, they would be the only ones.

Industrial Espionage is a huge problem in the United States even just between rival companies!

Here is a company that specializes in helping other companies keep their sensitive materials safe. You would be shocked at the type of secrets that go out in the trash.

http://www.shredit.com/

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Heibges

Industrial Espionage is a huge problem in the United States even just between rival companies!

Yea, this story just came up on BBC too...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6685299.stm
:hmm:

[AntEater]

I still can't see what is so bad about a strong Russia.
For many westerners it seems that the only Russia they want is one they can plunder at will for natural resources, people and whatever. Problem is, Russia is not the Phillipines or Rumania or Kongo.
Under Yeltsin, western media was always concerned about "stability" and basically approved of any antidemocratic measure ole Boris took.
Now they got stability and are yet incontent.
I didnt really like what Schröder did in internal politics, but his main foreign political steps, keeping Germany out of Iraq and improving relations to Russia, were very far sighted. Sadly Merkel and her cronies are about to reverse that. Ok, understandably most of Europe's conservative political and media elite grew up in the Reagan/Thatcher era and mostly made their career by being cold warriors. They just want to go back to familliar terrain. I was so ashamed when Merkel criticized Putin for clamping down on that idiot Kasparow (does anybody in Russia take this guy seriously?) while her own government did exactly the same to leftists in Hamburg and Berlin, even applying Stasi methods. I never thought germans were able of such double standards.
The war on terrorism is so vague and so unglamorous that a little blast from the past seems attractive.
I prefer Russia, even under Putin or his successors over the whole Muslim world and China any day.
Russia is part of Europe and of the western civilization and western leaders and media would do good to try and remember that.

Regarding this blog, I bet if somebody had started a blog like that against Turks, it would have been shut down within days...

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Camaero

I don't trust the Russians AT ALL. Putin is one bad dude.

That about sums it all up right there. Nothing else need be said.

[SUBMAN1]

More fuel for the fire:

http://www.milnet.com/opinion/Cold-War-Is-On.html

For a number of years, the hints have been apparent to those looking. In some ways, it has been apparent only as a sort of feeling of deja vu, a little like reading a few pages into a book and then realizing, "Hey, I've read this book!". That realization -- that inkling suddenly becomes a ull blown spine tingler...when you mentally put a finger on a passage and say before you've read it, "this is going to happen, you watch." And then you know. It's all happened before. In this case, we're saying there is a New Cold War in operation today, and it has been in operation for some time...

Hit the above link to read on

-S

[NefariousKoel]

Well, it seems as if our KGB buddy Putin has increasingly been running the country, along with the other factions, like they were Mafia Bosses.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by NefariousKoel

Well, it seems as if our KGB buddy Putin has increasingly been running the country, along with the other factions, like they were Mafia Bosses.

They are like Mafia. Only times Oligarchy hasnt excisted in Russia, is when it has turned in to Autocracy.

[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.

[Happy Times]

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.

I would like to hear your analysis about US, present and future.