U da Man, Fareed! Yeah, a couple of months ago I made fun of Fareed, who was then singing those “Why can’t we be more like China?” blues, claiming that “With an absent United States, China marches on”. According Fareed, while Uncle Sam sits on his ass, “China marches forward, except now it is not…
Tag: Vladimir Putin
Alan Vanneman, not a reliable guide to Eastern Europe
OK, I’m not. In my last foray east of the Elbe, I hoped/opined that Vladimir Putin’s muscle-flexing re “break-away” Ukraine was just that. Little did I know that Vlad would pull a Bush (or an Obama) and decide that war is fun. Like them both, he’s discovered that the ultima ratio regnum1 is chockfull of…
Mealy-mouthed diplomacy and vain posturing are not seldom the truest wisdom in politics
We can only hope that both Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin could be so smart. One can wish the two had a dialogue more or less as follows: Putin: What’s the idea of engineering the overthrow of a democratically elected government? I thought you were like pro-democracy! Obama: I have all these idealists to satisfy….
Alan Vanneman, eternally naïve
Yeah, it seems like it was only a week ago I was praising Ross Douthat for speaking intelligently about the situation in Ukraine. Well, that was then. Now Ross is on a roll, to wit: Is it really so ridiculous to believe that the Syria crisis confirmed certain impressions that Putin had already cultivated about…