Kelly McParland: Putin catches western intelligence napping once again
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That impression changed again when the Russian leader successfully outmaneouvred President Barack Obama in Syria and began making inroads into traditional U.S. areas of interest in the Middle East. Maybe the man was brighter, wilier than given credit for. He sure seemed able to outsmart the law professor in the White House.
The jury remains out. One observer notes that while Putin has certainly caught the West flat-footed, his previous calculations in Ukraine “have been wrong every single time,” from dismissing the Orange Revolution to backing ousted President Viktor Yanukovich. Ben Judah, writing in Politico, says Putin has developed a deeply cynical view of the West and its fundamental hypocrisy: the oligarchs with their mega-yachts, London estates and hundreds of billions of dollars in looted money have been assisted at every step by western banks and financial establishments while government leaders turned a blind eye, he notes. There are also suggestions that Putin is no more thrilled by the confrontation than Washington, but is reacting to years of uncertainty and upheaval in Ukraine that threatened Moscow’s economic interests. Yanukovitch, the argument goes, is no puppet of Moscow but a highjly unreliable figure who successfully played east off against west while feathering his own nest.
Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian prime minister, charges that the West has misplayed its hand ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, pushing NATO ever-closer to the Russian border, exploiting its perceived power advantage and ignoring the deep wounds imposed on the Russian psyche.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/03/03/kelly-mcparland-putin-catches-western-intelligence-napping-once-again/
Comment: It seems possile that the Snowden affair is relevant here, I suspect our intelligence about Russia has declined in value a good deal since last June.
