(Ras)Putin’s Reasoning

Posted by LK on 8/20/08 • Categorized as Conflict, Foreign Policy, Politics

So ex-KGB strongman Putin decides to make his Kremlin old school move as the world and its leaders are in an Olympic stupor. Since I give him and his crew credit for being geopolitical chess masters, I’ve got to assume that they were aware that their incursion in Georgia feeds directly into the McCain campaign.

So here are two possibilities to ponder:

1. He decided that it was of major and overriding value to intimidate Georgia and other neighboring former Soviet states right now, even though he’d be aiding the cause of our more hawkish presidential candidate.

2. He, for reasons I can’t fathom yet, would actually prefer a McCain presidency. If I had a trusty Russki AK-47 to my head and had to give my best guess why this might be so, it would be because he sees McCain as having more potential to bumble (a la Dubya) the increasingly complex problems that will land squarely on the desk of our next chief executive. While I give credit to McCain as being a brighter and more substantial fellow than the Bushster, he still isn’t a great multi-tasker, which is a prerequisite for public office in 2009.

Now Putin can also make mistakes, and he may have overplayed his hand here, as his Georgian adventure has steeled the resolve of Poland to get the U.S. provided anti-missile defense system into place ASAP.

Any thoughts on the above are welcome and I’ll post the best of them, as I think we’re all searching for answers, and if we’re not, we ought to be.

Editor’s Update: Here’s AP video posted today of Condoleezza Rice signing the missile deal With Poland. The video is a snoozefest, but the implications of the signing should have you wide awake.