Observers shouldn’t be too hard on Bordachev for getting all these important points wrong since Russia desperately lacks expertise on Poland so outdated tropes about it aren’t uncommon.
Let me be clearer: On what subject has Bordachev been right in recent years? Russia, France, UK, USA—same everywhere. It's insane how in these countries, 'experts' who have failed multiple times continue to enjoy the ear and money of the powerful and the gullibility of the public morons.
In fact, I think I understand Putin's problem. I listen to Putin, I read Putin, and I tell myself that the only desire he could have regarding Bordachev, far from listening to him and following his advice, is to see him impaled in public. But... So I come to think that Putin seems to suffer from the same problem as Napoleon. Far from being bloodthirsty autocrats, to take power under very difficult conditions, they had to rely on extremely important people. People whose opinions cannot be neglected. Napoleon had his damned Talleyrand (and everyone he represented, the nouveau riche from the massive looting of the revolution) like a pebble in his shoe until the very end. The pebble outlived him. In the new shoe that it had helped put on a new foot. Putin, to tear the country away from greedy oligarchs, traitors, and Western 'advisors,' had to get help from other greedy oligarchs, certainly less treacherous than the first ones but with, nevertheless, a very clear idea of their vision of a Russia conducive to their interests: sovereign, ok... but not too much. Napoleon, through this predatory class that had made him king, had to, against his own opinion, ensure the occupation of Holland (the English casus belli), northern Italy (the Austrian casus belli), and support the aspirations of the Poles (the Russian casus belli). We know the sequel and the end of that story. Let's come back to Putin. I think he has nothing but contempt for the clowns of Valdai and other dreamers of the Enchanted Carousel. But... but the people who made him king, not those from the secret services and the state apparatus, no, the less rotten oligarchs and all their networks, these people, I think they like very much what Bordachev and others say. I think that, much more than China, India, or his sense of fraternal responsibility for humanity, it is these people who hold Putin's hand back. If I am right, they will twist his hand until the very end and will always be there in the next shoe, forcing the new foot to march at their pace.
Fully agreed! The problem here in Russia is that practically every think tank apart from Tsargrad’s Katehon is publicly funded, even if only indirectly via commissioned work.
They therefore all toe the line and only differ in terms of how they spin whatever the policy may be at any given time. Essentially, there’s no difference between them nowadays.
This came to be due to the West funding think tanks after the Soviet collapse in an attempt to manipulate the formulation of Russian policy do it serves a security purpose.
Nevertheless, it’s ill-suited to today’s chaotic global transition, where creative and heterodox thinking is required, but Russia fundamentally lacks it due to this state of affairs.
That’s why one of my proposals was for the three main security agencies to have their own think tanks, even if their work is never publicly shared, to foster a culture of “friendly competition” and ideally break the curse of groupthink that plagues Russia.
Accordingly, due to this state of affairs, there’s zero professional accountability for being wrong; all that matters is that an expert applied the official Kremlin policy to their work at the time of its publication, that’s all.
China's various "think-tanks" have similar problems, but they suffer more because many are infiltrated by the US as well. It is kind of difficult to satisfy two fighting masters at once.
'- Poland now commands European NATO’s largest army, which it plans to expand from 215,000 troops to 300,000 by 2030 and half a million by 2039.'
Since Poland is aging so rapidly the cost of this, and there are significant indirect costs of having men not working in the private sector adding to GDP, will probably be footed to the EU. 'We're protecting YOU from the Ruskes'. That kind of stuff.
Poland actually funds everything on its own, but it wants more foreign troops on its soil -- and not just American ones -- as a means of ensuring that they'd have its back in the political fantasy of a Russian invasion that most Poles still take seriously.
(Question) I think I can understand the Polish thinking, but not quite the Baltic nations. (1) Why don't they pick up the lessons from the current Gulf War? How do they see their situations differ from those of Bahrain and Qatar? (2) The Baltic nations are old-Germanic, not Slavic. However, they were conquered by the Czar Russia and occupied by the USSR. Then a large number of them either chose to join the Red Army, or joined the retreating NAZI and left the region. The USSR did some systematic migration to this area. Can I say that all these "foreign" influences from Russia have left a minimal impact on these countries? I know a large chunk of Russian-speaking people left after the dissolution of the USSR. But was it enough to change the then-existing Russian influences in the region?
1. I think they believe that Article 5 is "sacrosanct" as the motto goes and qualitatively different than the implied guarantees that the US gave the Gulf Kingdoms by opening bases there.
2. The Baltic States are actually Balts, well Latvia and Lithuania are, while Estonians are closely related to Finns. The Baltic German elite were in Latvia and Estonia to a lesser extent, not really so much in Lithuania. Those influences are now gone and practically forgotten.
3. Russians are still a sizeable minority in Latvia and Estonia, but they have minimal rights due to post-communist legislation due to the titular peoples consider them to be "weaponized migrants" brought by the USSR to change demographics.
Poles desperately want that pat on the head from some American. The money is beside the point.
Take away Russia and poland's relevance to anyone disappears, it goes from Special Little Buddy to a backwater midtier satrapy, a supplier of cheap labor with delusions of grandeur.
Let me be clearer: On what subject has Bordachev been right in recent years? Russia, France, UK, USA—same everywhere. It's insane how in these countries, 'experts' who have failed multiple times continue to enjoy the ear and money of the powerful and the gullibility of the public morons.
In fact, I think I understand Putin's problem. I listen to Putin, I read Putin, and I tell myself that the only desire he could have regarding Bordachev, far from listening to him and following his advice, is to see him impaled in public. But... So I come to think that Putin seems to suffer from the same problem as Napoleon. Far from being bloodthirsty autocrats, to take power under very difficult conditions, they had to rely on extremely important people. People whose opinions cannot be neglected. Napoleon had his damned Talleyrand (and everyone he represented, the nouveau riche from the massive looting of the revolution) like a pebble in his shoe until the very end. The pebble outlived him. In the new shoe that it had helped put on a new foot. Putin, to tear the country away from greedy oligarchs, traitors, and Western 'advisors,' had to get help from other greedy oligarchs, certainly less treacherous than the first ones but with, nevertheless, a very clear idea of their vision of a Russia conducive to their interests: sovereign, ok... but not too much. Napoleon, through this predatory class that had made him king, had to, against his own opinion, ensure the occupation of Holland (the English casus belli), northern Italy (the Austrian casus belli), and support the aspirations of the Poles (the Russian casus belli). We know the sequel and the end of that story. Let's come back to Putin. I think he has nothing but contempt for the clowns of Valdai and other dreamers of the Enchanted Carousel. But... but the people who made him king, not those from the secret services and the state apparatus, no, the less rotten oligarchs and all their networks, these people, I think they like very much what Bordachev and others say. I think that, much more than China, India, or his sense of fraternal responsibility for humanity, it is these people who hold Putin's hand back. If I am right, they will twist his hand until the very end and will always be there in the next shoe, forcing the new foot to march at their pace.
Fully agreed! The problem here in Russia is that practically every think tank apart from Tsargrad’s Katehon is publicly funded, even if only indirectly via commissioned work.
They therefore all toe the line and only differ in terms of how they spin whatever the policy may be at any given time. Essentially, there’s no difference between them nowadays.
This came to be due to the West funding think tanks after the Soviet collapse in an attempt to manipulate the formulation of Russian policy do it serves a security purpose.
Nevertheless, it’s ill-suited to today’s chaotic global transition, where creative and heterodox thinking is required, but Russia fundamentally lacks it due to this state of affairs.
That’s why one of my proposals was for the three main security agencies to have their own think tanks, even if their work is never publicly shared, to foster a culture of “friendly competition” and ideally break the curse of groupthink that plagues Russia.
Accordingly, due to this state of affairs, there’s zero professional accountability for being wrong; all that matters is that an expert applied the official Kremlin policy to their work at the time of its publication, that’s all.
China's various "think-tanks" have similar problems, but they suffer more because many are infiltrated by the US as well. It is kind of difficult to satisfy two fighting masters at once.
'- Poland now commands European NATO’s largest army, which it plans to expand from 215,000 troops to 300,000 by 2030 and half a million by 2039.'
Since Poland is aging so rapidly the cost of this, and there are significant indirect costs of having men not working in the private sector adding to GDP, will probably be footed to the EU. 'We're protecting YOU from the Ruskes'. That kind of stuff.
Poland actually funds everything on its own, but it wants more foreign troops on its soil -- and not just American ones -- as a means of ensuring that they'd have its back in the political fantasy of a Russian invasion that most Poles still take seriously.
(Question) I think I can understand the Polish thinking, but not quite the Baltic nations. (1) Why don't they pick up the lessons from the current Gulf War? How do they see their situations differ from those of Bahrain and Qatar? (2) The Baltic nations are old-Germanic, not Slavic. However, they were conquered by the Czar Russia and occupied by the USSR. Then a large number of them either chose to join the Red Army, or joined the retreating NAZI and left the region. The USSR did some systematic migration to this area. Can I say that all these "foreign" influences from Russia have left a minimal impact on these countries? I know a large chunk of Russian-speaking people left after the dissolution of the USSR. But was it enough to change the then-existing Russian influences in the region?
To your questions:
1. I think they believe that Article 5 is "sacrosanct" as the motto goes and qualitatively different than the implied guarantees that the US gave the Gulf Kingdoms by opening bases there.
2. The Baltic States are actually Balts, well Latvia and Lithuania are, while Estonians are closely related to Finns. The Baltic German elite were in Latvia and Estonia to a lesser extent, not really so much in Lithuania. Those influences are now gone and practically forgotten.
3. Russians are still a sizeable minority in Latvia and Estonia, but they have minimal rights due to post-communist legislation due to the titular peoples consider them to be "weaponized migrants" brought by the USSR to change demographics.
"Why don't they pick up the lessons from the current Gulf War?"
The rulers are the only one that matter, and in the event of an actual Russian invasion, they'll be gone.
Poles desperately want that pat on the head from some American. The money is beside the point.
Take away Russia and poland's relevance to anyone disappears, it goes from Special Little Buddy to a backwater midtier satrapy, a supplier of cheap labor with delusions of grandeur.