http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-russia-simultaneously-annou...

Seriously, if you're going to fight a war fight an economic war, much less destructive to other people than the little proxy wars the big boys seems to love so much.

But otherwise... "same as it ever was."

When a war ends without the politics being settled, the seed of conflict remains.

However, most either people lack this longer term vision and falsely perceive a physical wins as an ultimate "victory", or don't care because they won't be around then.

"This isn't a peace, it's a twenty year truce!" - Ferdinand Foch, regarding the Treaty of Versailles

As an aside, the U.S's failure to predict the Collapse of the USSR was probably their greatest intelligence failure, with the consequence being Russia beginning a hurtling into the Abyss, arrested by Putin, and a partial reversal of the Democratic trend of Gorbachev. I don't think Demonizing Putin is really going to be helpful. Ignorance of the historical circumstances of Russia brought him in power is analogous to the belief that a Utopian Democracy could simply be imposed on Iraq from above. Take a Spherical Cow in a Vacuum, add some Democracy...

Foch was proven right. It must have been maddening for him to know the truth of the situation, but be over-ruled by popular sentiment toward ending a disastrous and suicidal war.

This makes me want to reconsider all of my own knowledge of course, because as your examples illustrate, it's possible that there is something worse than being wrong, and it is to not notice something important.

You make a really good point here.

It's not that there's a conspiracy, or they censored themselves. There's simply zero reward in pursuing any path that leads to the conclusion that one's job is obsolete or soon will be.

With a minor caveat, I guess. Those who can figure it out without much effort will then be those who seek new employment before it happens. It's hard to predict these things however.

Just as Italy replied to Snowden that he should have brought the request personally, our ministry of immigration finds excuses like "the procedure takes time..."

Putin already said that he won't send him to a country where he may be sentenced to death. So even in that case, he probably won't be sent to the US but to some other country than grants asylum to him.

... so it seems RT popped their cork too early. Explains why the Guardian didn't cover this yet.

"Federal migration service has not issued documents allowing Edward Snowden to leave the airport yet, there was a misinformation today in the media, said Kucherena."

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_07_24/Edward-Snowden-leaves-Sher...

(well, maybe 'almost all' rather than 'all.')

Putin is a man of his word, and expects the same from Snowden.

Information may continue to leak, but not from Snowden. His part of the show is finished (and luckily for him, he's not even bruised!).

Can you elaborate on that? Any concrete examples of how they were doing this?

From the same Putin's regime we hear the same about the US, although just guesses, no facts. I'm curious how the west sees that.

Its not a rigorous example, but I think the front page of RT (the Russian - state backed media outlet) is a good example. Most of the US based stories are highly critical of the US government. It's also no coincidence that Julian Assange has his own show on RT.

I also believe Russia's backing of Assad is mostly an attempt to block Western influence in the middle east. But there's probably a number of reason and thats just one.

In my opinion, being exiled from your home and living the rest of your life with the world superpower ready to kidnap you is relatively bruising.

:-)

The only thing I hold against him is his failure, as promised, to hang Georgian president by his balls. Eating necktie is a weak substitute.

For one random example (not being a huge student of 21st century Russia), he promised Bush that he wasn't arming Saddam's troops. Turned out they were outfitted with a lot of Russian anti-tank and night vision gear when we got there.

That doesn't say anything about Russia arming Saddam's troops. I'm sure there are a lot of cases U.S. arming their "allies" and then these weapons in some way became available to terrorists...

I simply don't think it is possible to know and predict how and by whom weapons will be used.

It's a he said, she said, of course.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045848/Vladimir-Put...

Remember, he comes from the KGB, eventually rising to be the FSB director (the KGB successor).

Once he's left Russia, I suspect he'll be able to continue his activities.