Putin On The Ritz

In almost every generation a leader emerges among the nations, quasi-nations, and pseudo-nations of the world. In our time that leader is Russia’s Vladimir Putin. As an American, this is both hard for me to admit and something that I cannot find to be a positive thing for my nation. That, however, doesn’t make it any less true and refusing to accept that truth would be even worse for America.

Putin On The Ritz
Vladimir Putin – The World’s Leader

The one thing that truly sets President Vladimir Putin apart from the rest of world’s, and especially America’s, politicians is that he is a leader of men and they, especially Obama, are merely politicians. Putin commands respect and gets it, they do neither.

Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes … but he makes a decision and he executes it quickly. Then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader. President Obama, he’s got to think about it. He’s got to go over it again. He’s got to talk to more people about it.

— Rudy Giuliani

Mr. Giuliani is, quite sadly, completely correct. Of all the people on the world’s stage Putin is the man who is most the leader and who is most worthy of respect in that role. The key words in this are “Leader” and “Respect.” Those do not respectively equate to “Friend” or “Approval.”

Putin is neither friend nor ally to America and is, at a bare minimum, an adversary of Europe. There is little of his foreign policy that is not contrary to the West’s perceived best interests and even less of his domestic policies that the majority of the West’s peoples find acceptable.

Therein lies the problem. The greatest and most worthy of respect leader of this time is one that is not on our side. Nor do we have, singularly or collectively, such leaders as can effectively balk him with anything resembling ease. As the victors write the history books, this could well end up with us “on the wrong side of history.”

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4 Responses to “Putin On The Ritz”

  1. Alfie Says:

    liked this post,good job. I agree with the premise as well and I think it dovetails with the reality that many corners of the world are accepting of the new autocratic style of folks like Putin. He does indeed get things done.

  2. Alan Scott Says:

    Putin’s rise coincides with America’s decline. America voted twice for Obama. He is what the country wanted after Bush. Anytime the west becomes weak a strong adversary leader will rise to fill the vacuum. We should be grateful that he isn’t worse or that Russia is still weak from the Soviet break up. Imagine if the Soviets were still at their military peak with a leader like Putin and us only having Barry.

  3. jonolan Says:

    Alfie,

    Thanks. My background gives me certain advantages in these matters so it’s not that hard for me to understand the sentiments or the ramifications of such.

    Alan,

    I disagree. The decline of America does not result in strong adversarial leaders arising. It just seems that way by comparison, i.e., weak or lacking American leaders make the enemy leaders look stronger when, in objective fact, they aren’t particularly strong.

    This time, however, a truly strong one did arise. Putin is both strong and a good leader…and one that is in a certain amount of opposition to America.

    Fortunately for us, you’re right in that Putin isn’t a real threat to the US directly since we’re not in the same geopolitical space as when the Cold War was going on. If we were, we’d be fucked with Obama at the helm of the US.

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