Goble on the Russian Army

I was reading Paul Goble’s Window On Eurasia blog late yesterday, and this caught my eye because it was in reference to the rumours of a clan war.

…[the] decision to increase its force levels in the North Caucasus points to three important conclusions about policy and politics in the Russian capital, conclusions that suggest some very different conclusions than some have been drawing in recent weeks.
First, this decision suggests that decision making on these questions is still dominated by the force structures around Vladimir Putin who has made no secret of his belief in the efficacy of the use of force rather than by political forces around Dmitry Medvedev who have promoted the idea that Moscow must use economic and social tools to overcome problems in the Caucasus.
Second, it suggests that for all the complaints about the downsizing of the officer corps and the military that have been raised in recent months, the Russian army can still get government support whenever it is in a position to make the case that only it is in a position to guarantee that those who are in power remain there.

Some things to think about, at least.

Oleg Kozlovsky

on Mike McFaul and Slava Surkov:

Michael McFaul is known for his sober and clear understanding of the situation in Russia. He barely has any illusions on what the Russian political system is like. But he does really sound like many Realpolitik-infected diplomats, who call the West to turn a blind eye on Russia slipping down to dictatorship.

Is Obama’s administration really going to give the issue of human rights the last priority or how should we understand this “new approach”?

This all ties in with the article from Paul Goble that I mentioned yesterday.  I want to hi-light a few of the more salient parts of Paul’s piece.

Russian rights activists were angered by three things “Kommersant” reported, each of which at least in part McFaul and others have suggested the Moscow paper misquoted him or misconstrued his meaning. First, the activists were upset that the NSC staffer had suggested that Washington will refrain from “public criticism” of Surkov’s beloved “sovereign democracy.”
Second, they were angered that the joint commission on civil society would not include NGO representatives. And third, they were angered by the notion — added it should be noted by “Kommersant” — that McFaul had equated what they do with what Moscow operatives like Andranik Migranyan of the New York-based Institute of Democracy and Cooperation.

Lyudmila Alekseyeva at Moscow Helsinki was particularly critical:

“[I]f America says: ‘we have democracy, and you can arrange things for yourselves as you like, then everything the democratic countries have achieved since 1975 will go by the wayside…. [I]f America and the rest of the world will silently watch while freedom of the press is suppressed [in Russia], while meetings and demonstrations are broken up, … while political parties are shackled and elections falsified, … then, in that case, [she said she thought] that the Nobel Peace Prize had been given to Barak Obama prematurely.”

From Bukovsky (who gave a great speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum): “the problem of human rights is directly connected with the problem of international security” because countries that ignore human rights “are inclined to aggression”

But by far the best response was Anton Orekh’s:

“[I]n the struggle for changes in [Russian] society, [Russians] can count only on themselves…. No one except us can resolve this problem,” he concluded, and rather than continue to “appeal to the enlightened West” to come and save Russia from itself, “it would be better [for those who care about human rights and democracy] to more actively work with one’s own citizens however difficult such work inevitably is.”

Some things to think about.