Strategy Page: Russia Dumps Quality In Favor Of Mediocrity
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posted by eagle on July, 2009 as Imperialism
Russia Dumps Quality In Favor Of Mediocrity
July 26, 2009: Russia's efforts to downsize and professionalize their military, especially their ground forces, continues to encounter problems. The idea behind the new defense reforms in the Russian military is to create a large, but more professional and competent force, than has been the case with the mass conscript armies that have dominated Russia since the Soviet period. Unfortunately, some of these goals are backfiring, as new measures to save money and get rid of excessive numbers of senior personnel are having the exact opposite result. About 320,000 new draftees will be conscripted into the Russian Army during the Fall of 2009. This is a major jump up from the 219,000 inductees during Fall of 2008. Last Spring, only 133,000 new recruits were drafted for the ground forces. Part of this is due to the massive personnel cuts and reorganization that the armed forces have been undergoing recently. The ... >> full
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OfficialWire: Russia Has Decided To Place Greater Operational Emphasis On Special Forces...
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Russia Has Decided To Place Greater Operational Emphasis On Special Forces
Russia is in the midst of a very deep macroeconomic crisis, and we now expect the economy in 2009 to contract by 7.1% in real terms, with risks weighted to the downside
by Press Office
LONDON, ENGLAND -- (Companiesandmarkets.com and OfficialWire) -- 07/22/09 --Russia Defence and Security Report Q3 2009 Russia is in the midst of a very deep macroeconomic crisis, and we now expect the economy in 2009 to contract by 7.1% in real terms, with risks weighted to the downside. This will be a domestic demanddriven recession, but contextualised within a wider global capital shortage. As Russia continues to experience net capital outflows, domestic credit conditions will remain highly constricted through to at least 2010, ensuring a prolonged contraction in gross fixed capital formation and private consumption.
Economic conditions continued to worsen in Russia through Q109, confirming our view that the Q308 ...
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Window On Eurasia: Russians Increase Purchases Of Guns For Self-Defense
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 20 – As the economic crisis deepens and fears of crime spread, not only are more Russians buying guns of various kinds – including pistols and gas guns -- but many of them are buying more than one, trends that are prompting some Duma deputies to consider repealing existing restrictions on the purchase of hunting rifles for self-defense.
But as could be expected on the basis of the experience of other countries, many of these guns are not used for self-defense but rather in settling personal scores or, the Russian interior ministry says, in the kind of ethnic and group conflicts that have already left many dead and could claim more lives as gun ownership spreads (newizv.ru/news/2009-07-20/112048/).
According to an article in today’s “Novyye izvestiya,” “besides the unemployed, activists of certain organizations are arming themselves.” The paper ...
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Window On Eurasia: Putin ‘Federalism’ About Absorbing Neighbors, Not Protecting Minorities, Moscow Analyst Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 21 – Even compared to its Soviet predecessor, the federalism of the Russian Federation as Vladimir Putin understands it has little to do with providing autonomy and protection to minorities and more about creating a procedure for absorbing neighboring countries into the Russian state, according to a leading Moscow expert on federal systems.
In an essay in the new issue of “Neprikosnovennyy zapas,” Andrey Zakharov, the journal’s editor and author of “Unitary Federation: Five Studies of Russian Federalism” (Moscow, in Russian, 2008), offers that disturbing conclusion on the basis of a careful examination of the two (magazines.russ.ru/nz/2009/3/za18.html).
Both the Soviet Union in the past and the Russian Federation now were called “federative” states only as a result of “some misunderstanding,” Zakharov says. “In both cases, behind the formulas … were concealed a unitary-imperial ...
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Prague Watchdog: Orientalism Versus Imperialism - The Caucasus Versus The North
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Orientalism versus Imperialism - the Caucasus
Some thirty years ago, a book by Edward Said called Orientalism provoked a stormy public reaction and laid the foundations of an entire new academic discipline in the English-speaking world – that of postcolonial studies. It was translated into dozens of languages, and produced an enormous secondary literature of refutations and apologetics. The book traces the history of how Europeans (and later also Americans) formed a relation to an Other which they called the “Orient”, and which we now know as the Middle East. This historical and cultural construction, which became established in the European consciousness around the end of the eighteenth century, turned into a giant machine for the creation of ideas and for their discussion and interpretation. The machine’s additional function was to turn these ideas into political solutions, which were embodied in hundreds of thousands of soldiers, diplomats, entrepreneurs ... |
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