Reddit reviews All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin
We found 7 Reddit comments about All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Orders are despatched from our UK warehouse next working day.
I find myself in agreement with some of this as a left leaning person who voted for Obama.
Obama's year end news conference was the worst I've seen him.
It was the presser of a guy who now realizes his legacy is going to be Syria and Donald Trump. The rest is noise.
Foreign Policy Failures:
"Too many things have come to him as a surprise" this video could be recorded today and the words would be just as true. Obama's failure to recognize the criticisms in this video contributed to his poor foreign policy.
This Jimmy Carter attribution could also apply to Obama:
>In the Carter years, the United States was an international laughingstock
> It was because, whether in Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq—still the source of so many of our woes—the Carter administration could not tell a friend from an enemy. His combination of naivete and cynicism—from open-mouthed shock at Leonid Brezhnev's occupation of Afghanistan to underhanded support for Saddam in his unsleeping campaign of megalomania—had terrible consequences that are with us still. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that every administration since has had to deal with the chaotic legacy of Carter's mind-boggling cowardice and incompetence.
Obama's flaccid response to the middle east ushered in a greater instability, sent a shockwave of fascism that spread through europe and into America and contributed to Trump's rise (made democracy more vulnerable to demagogues). [KEYWORD HERE: Contributed, not solely ]
Aleppo’s fall is Obama’s failure
The Iran deal has enabled the devastation of Syria, see Jay Solomon's reporting.
The deal sent a crippling blow to Obama's foreign policy all over: One example
Why hasn’t the administration done anything about Syria, and won’t? Because the Iran Deal.
Obama's Plan to Aid Iranian Moderates Failed Spectacularly
The Iran Deal and Sanctions Relief for Terrorists
UN sees small but significant Iranian nuke deal violation
Putin has played Obama on Syria every step of the way. And winning is easy when you are the bully; destruction and a declension is considered a success.
>“Vladimir Putin did not like the new American president from the start. For him, Barack Obama was both soft and intractable… Paradoxically, Obama, the most idealistic and peace-loving U.S. president in living memory, became a symbol of war in Russia, a target for Russian state propaganda and racist jokes, and a hate figure for millions of patriotic Russians. He was caricatured as an ill-fated enemy doomed to be defeated by Vladimir Putin.”
All the Kremlin's Men
>Genevieve Casagrande, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, said this was a victory for Russia, and likely its goal. Forcing Aleppo’s rebels to cooperate with jihadists would taint them, making it harder for the West to provide them arms or include them in any peace deal.
>“Russia and the regime are driving the radicalization of the opposition on purpose,” Ms. Casagrande said. This will unify and strengthen the opposition in the short term, but in the long term will blur any distinction between jihadists and other rebels.
Russia’s Brutal Bombing of Aleppo May Be Calculated, and It May Be Working
Other failures:
I think one of the biggest problems facing us when looking at the politics of other nations is exercising cognitive empathy. The Intercept wrote a very decent article on this. Every nation has a group of powerful people trying to control the general narrative to influence the population. They generally are able to do this because think-tanks are beholden to the moneyed interests of their donors, and press corps frequently reference the statements made by think-tanks and are subject to interests of their very own shareholders. You see, when people in powerful positions try to direct a narrative, one of their first goals is to remove cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to relate to another persons or groups objectives and their situation. But propaganda attempts to throw a bowl of watercolour at another nation, and trying to create a specific negative image that always appears in our minds when we think of the name of a country. Through repeatedly showing images of a certain hue of colour, framed with a certain negativity, it will always be imprinted in our minds until we see reality otherwise. Think of Russia, picture it in your head. What colours do you see? Is it blue, grey, possibly red? All colours that evoke negative emotion, like anger or a depressed mood. When simplifying Russian politics to the archetypes of a single individual, propaganda makes a nations motivations more easily understandable and is more able to depict a nation as having malicious motivations. A nation can be boiled down to the behaviours of a single individual in this context, and can therefore be depicted as erratic or sociopathic to an audience. In the case of Vladimir Putin, it typically serves to depict Russia as draconian, diabolically cunning, and holding malicious self-interests. In the case of North Korea, it serves to depict the nation as an irritable child acting out of anger and frustration. This is never necessarily true. Through coupling these methods of propaganda together, consciously or not, the narrative that spokesmen and think-tanks like to set is able to inhibit the cognitive empathy the common individual is able to exercise and make a nations foreign policy more appealing. Make no mistake, the same is exercised in Russia when discussing the West.
Liberalism tends to buttress this propaganda by asserting that the aggressiveness of a nation is driven somehow inextricably linked to how authoritarian it is, and the actions an authoritarian leader undertakes is purely for the sake of maintaining power. Otherwise, there would be no need for aggression, and the world would generally be a peaceful place. This sort of position is deeply rooted in an American outlook on the world, where liberal politics and a liberal economy are generally seen as the most ideal form of governance. It's rooted in the Neoconservatism of the late-Cold War, the Democratic Peace Theory, and generations of American leaders preaching the virtues of their political system and its ideology to their citizens. It is for this reason that Liberalism as an interpretation holds so much appeal to the average American. Since the Puritans first established their colonies in New England, they described themselves as building a 'city upon a hill,' so to speak. Their virtues and values were superior to that of the old world, dominated by the Catholicism they had departed from. Of course, through the ebb and flow of American history, this view generally subsided. But Americans still see liberal democracy as the most ideal form of governance, and usually hold their value system as the most progressive, advanced, or lacking in prejudice. Something that Liberalism fails to describe is that, in the face of increasingly agitating other nations, suppressing civil liberties internally, and stagnating the economy of the nation, all in the name of maintaining power, why do they seek that power? Power is an instrument to be used, not the object of someone's aspirations or goals. Are they ideologically charged? If so, why do they run against the interests of promoting their ideology by unnecessarily engaging in aggressive actions? If they are motivated by self-interest entirely, why do they go through the effort of moving their way into an administrative position demanding massive responsibility where lower-ranked positions exist elsewhere that better serve self-interests? They would occupy a low-ranked, municipal position where they would best be suited to avoid being caught while grafting their citizens. It doesn't add up. It's easy to state that Western Liberal democracy fundamentally works for its people, and is a superior system in this regard. But, I find that this is a very dogmatic view, an opinion deeply entrenched in ideology. I could easily argue that, in the instance of America, Liberal Democracy is often undemocratic, and fails to uphold the interests of its people through dysfunction. But, there is nuance in everything, every political system is flawed, and therefore using different political systems as a metric for gauging a nations motivations falls short.
This went on way longer than I originally intended, but there is a lot to be said. If you want a good framework on Russian politics, I suggest All the Kremlin's Men. It has a strong anti-Putin slant to it, but I consider that a strength.
Also there is this book, its also about background in Russian politics, its something like house of cards but in real life...
I can't vouch for these books, but these are the ones on my list that I've heard are good. I know at least the first one will probably address precisely what you want to know, and is written by reputable scholars at the Brookings Institution:
These describe his life, events that shaped him, and how Russia is structured now, according to the descriptions. I'm fairly sure all three have reputable authors and are worth a read.
If you want to read more about the Cold War that may have shaped his understanding of Russian history, you can check out some potential good reads there, from a historical perspective.
"All the Kremlin's men" on ihan hyvä kirja aiheesta.
Putin is stuck in a situation that has now grown out of his control. Everyone is in on the take and there is no way in sight to fix the problem. Too many layers of overlapping corruption.
Read, All the Kremlins Men by Michael Zygar.
https://www.amazon.com/All-Kremlins-Men-Inside-Vladimir/dp/1610397398
>White supremacists’ Alexander Dugin links are no secret
FTFY
Alexander Dugin's philosophy doesn't mean Russia has a strategy for a Nazi Reich.
Jeffrey Mankoff is the neocon trying persuade people that Dugin is part of Putin's inner circle.
Mankoff should read All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin by Mikhail Zygar.
Alexander Dugin's National Bolshevik Party is banned in Russia FFS.