The last five years have been relatively neutral in Russia history with Mr. Putin's step down to Prime Minister but everyone knew he was there in some way but out of the camera lights. HE'S BACCCCK!
Russian history is pocked with tsars, upheaval, wealth unimaginable and famines of biblical proportion, strong leaders and corruption is a norm. Mr. Putin has, not doubt, spent his last five years laying the infrastructure politically to firm the footing for the journey ahead. Russia as a nation is rich in raw materials such as oil, natural gas and coal.
Almost all, ALL, natural gas the heats Europe transits from Russia through the Ukraine pipeline system into Europe. One can thus imagine the leverage Mr. Putin possesses to change the thinking in Europe; a Europe that is weak, broken and debt ridden. An opportunity? I think yes!
I am quite sure the EU leaders in trying to save the European Union and the euro have been looking East knowing this succession step was inevitable. The geometry has now changed for Europe and I believe the world with Mr. Putin's rise or return. It is just another handful of gravel in the economic engines of the world struggling already. Here is what you should watch .... CHINA and her relationship with Russia. There is Biblical implication to these two countries joined by geography but separated by thousands of years of war, racism, bloodshed and angst.
Vladimir the Eternal
Russia faces the prospect of a quarter-century of Putinism.
The dream of a post-Communist democracy in Russia faded years ago, but this weekend the Kremlin made it official. Vladimir Putin will once again run for President, continuing his 11-year reign as de facto czar for what could be another dozen years.
This weekend's meeting of Mr. Putin's United Russia party merely clarified the method of coronation. Prime minister since 2008, Mr. Putin will take back the presidency in an election next year that will offer only the appearance of democratic competition. He held the presidency for eight years from 2000, hand-picking Dmitry Medvedev as his four-year placeholder to evade the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms. Mr. Medvedev will likely return to his previous post of prime minister.
This is what Mr. Putin once famously called "managed democracy." With the presidential term recently extended to six years, he will have a chance to stay at the Kremlin at least until 2024, when he'll be 72. Leonid Brezhnev died in the job at 75.
So much for the conceit that Mr. Medvedev was potentially an independent reformer. The Obama Administration's "reset" of relations with Russia was supposed to court and strengthen Mr. Medvedev. While relations are smoother than they were after Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008, the policy has delivered few other dividends and has been irrelevant to Russia's antidemocratic turn.
The timing of this switch is slightly surprising, and perhaps revealing. Kremlinologists expected Mr. Putin to wait until after December's parliamentary elections to show his cards. The early move suggests some vulnerability. Security and business elites are bickering openly. So Mr. Putin seems to have decided that he needed to re-assert his authority over the boyars and end any uncertainty over who will run Russia in the future.
A political system so dependent on a single personality is by nature unstable. For now, the Kremlin can count on high oil and gas prices to finance half its budget, but foreign investment has fled and Russia is a stagnant place. In his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Putin acknowledged as much and promised an economic shake-up. But genuine reform would require that he allow alternative bases of power to emerge, economic and political, and this is not something that czars do.
This is what Mr. Putin once famously called "managed democracy." With the presidential term recently extended to six years, he will have a chance to stay at the Kremlin at least until 2024, when he'll be 72. Leonid Brezhnev died in the job at 75.
So much for the conceit that Mr. Medvedev was potentially an independent reformer. The Obama Administration's "reset" of relations with Russia was supposed to court and strengthen Mr. Medvedev. While relations are smoother than they were after Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008, the policy has delivered few other dividends and has been irrelevant to Russia's antidemocratic turn.
The timing of this switch is slightly surprising, and perhaps revealing. Kremlinologists expected Mr. Putin to wait until after December's parliamentary elections to show his cards. The early move suggests some vulnerability. Security and business elites are bickering openly. So Mr. Putin seems to have decided that he needed to re-assert his authority over the boyars and end any uncertainty over who will run Russia in the future.
A political system so dependent on a single personality is by nature unstable. For now, the Kremlin can count on high oil and gas prices to finance half its budget, but foreign investment has fled and Russia is a stagnant place. In his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Putin acknowledged as much and promised an economic shake-up. But genuine reform would require that he allow alternative bases of power to emerge, economic and political, and this is not something that czars do.
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