International ponderings...

What an interesting world this is, and how it seems to prove that history repeats itself.  Vladimir Putin has either never bothered to study world history or, more likely in keeping with his much inflated vision of himself, doesn't believe it exists prior to his birth.  However, Russia and Putin are going much the same way as others, and the similarities are striking.

At the end of the "soviet" era, Russia was essentially bankrupt, and by the time the newly minted Russian Federation was ten years old it was bankrupt, the RF having defaulted on government bonds and the ruble fell like an Aeroflot plane.  Russians acquired a chip on their shoulders and a humiliation at being unable to cope in a capitalist market.

So, what happens?  Putin basically takes a one-man rule approach to RF government, including a puppet president, and sets it on a 12-year development plan.  The soviets called them "5-year plans" or the like, but there it is again.  And he raises the likelihood of national financial ruin to continue to drive his view of the world and Russia in particular.

Mr. Putin also uses brawn over brains in his Georgia adventure and resorts to mikhail mouse type of theatrics, i.e. a "found" American passport, to show the US and western countries were behind the original Georgian actions.  Never mind the previous owner of the passport, which was reported lost, was in China teaching at the time.  It still makes good press at home to raise the fears of the Russian people that the US is now the dominant world evil out to get them and only Mr. Putin is brave enough to stand up to the West and lead the brave Russian Federation to its place of glory on the world stage.

Let's move to the 1930's, and here's probably why Putin doesn't recall history - it happened in Germany, against whom Russia still holds a grudge.  Germany established one-man rule with the election of Adolph Hitler with a puppet Chancellor in the elderly Bismarck.  Hitler preyed on the feelings of the German people because of their humiliation at the terms of the conclusion of the first world war.  See any similarities yet?

Any guesses who was inclined to use brawn over brain?  Hitler and his German army, invading the Rhineland,  Austria, the Sudetenland then Poland.  And let's see, who did Hitler blame for the problems of Germany?  I'll give you six million guesses, who became the scapegoats for the German escapades and reasons for their actions.  All this to assuage German "humiliation" over the end of WWI, pretty much originally caused by Germany to begin with.

So what do we have here, two instances of imposed one-man rule after "free" elections; military interventions to bolster the self-image of the nation and bully others to go along with them; a "cause" or "scapegoat" for these actions and a source for an element of fear with which to play on their citizens imaginations and feelings.  Germany and Russia; Hitler and Putin.

Oh, and let's not leave out the sub-players of British Prime Minister Chamberlain ("Peace in our time!") and French President Sarkozy ('stop what you're doing or we'll have to have another meeting about it!').  Like Chamberlain, it appears the EU needs a strong dose of Viagra!

Fortunately, I don't see this heading to a war as it did in the 1930's.  The Russian Federation, for all the pride it shows itself, will likely self-destruct again, while blaming the West, and will again be bailed out by them.  And Russia, and the Russians, will continue to believe the world just can't exist without them - just like the Nazis, Fascists and Japan's Imperial Way Faction.

Perhaps Russian nationalism is the cover for an underlying self-loathing they can't escape, a feeling they can't really be better than this.  Yes, they are a complex people, but ones who tend to act and react the same way in any given situation since Stalin.     

History is repetitious, and Mr. Putin is giving an excellent history lesson.