What Putin is up to

John Ionides

I would be wary of portraying Putin in too bad a light. The Russia that he inherited was deeply insecure with itself - a bit like the UK in the last 70s - and so one of his jobs is to try to build up national estime, in much the same way as Thatcher did in the UK. Also, he was stuck with a position where a lot of finanical clout had been handed out in a fairly arbitrary process. He has, in many ways entirely sensibly, set out to reverse this procedure. Yes, there are real problems in Russia - large scale corruption and a failure to observe the rule of law amongst the most concerning. I was somewhat cheered to read that a recent survey revealed that now only 57% of checks by the traffic police resulted in bribes rather than 75% a couple of years ago, but these are still very high figures! Other signs are also encouraging; the transport infrastructure around St Petersburg is definitely improving (and it will have to as car sales are booming) So lets keep things in perspective. Remember, the UK government isn't averse to harrasing the odd dissident to his death (c.f. Dr Kelly) when it suits them so while things are bad on a much larger scale in Russia we maybe have more in common than we would sometimes like to believe.

Paul Robinson

Let's get some perspective here. Russia's defence spending has gone up to $16.7 bn. That of the USA is around $500 bn. Add in the expenditure of the US's NATO allies, and the US dominated world spends maybe $800 bn on defence. And yet you suggest that 'Putin's explicit aim is to challenge, and then counter, America's world domination'. Sorry, but $16.7 bn is never going to challenge, let alone counter, $800 bn. Moreover, Putin has never 'explicitly' stated any such aim. You may wish to see it, but it has never been said as such, if only because it is utterly unrealistic. Meanwhile, the USA has invested even greater billions in upgrading its nuclear forces (see the recent Atlantic for some details on this), and the UK is about to spend billions upgrading its nuclear deterrent. In both cases, the expenditure puts that of Russia in the shade. The hyperbole is unjustifiable. Paul