Dismayed about Navalny. However, his arrest was predictable (I don't think anyone who followed this story was actually surprised). The issue is not Putin's "fear" of Navalny - it's Putin's credibility. He had signalled that he did not want Navalny back, promising arrest.
If Navalny were allowed to go free in Moscow, the inevitable conclusion would be that Putin was weak, that he was "afraid" to arrest him. Now, much depends on the international reaction. Sanctions have already been ramped up but could of course be massively extended.
My expectation (alas) is that the EU won't do it: it would require much greater cohesion than what the EU can actually afford. However, if they did, and if Navalny became a trading chip in this game, you'd expect the regime to strip him of his citizenship, and then deport him.
That would be unconstitutional of course but who in the Kremlin ever worried about the Constitution?
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Soviet leaders discuss whether or not to endorse US economic sanctions against Iran (early January 1980). These were in retaliation for US diplomats being taken hostage at the Embassy in Tehran. The gist 👇🏿
Yeah, we don't like when diplomats are taken hostage... but on the other hand, US economic sanctions are not about hostages at all - they want to punish Iran for their anti-imperialist policy and since we are the "flag-carriers of anti-imperialist struggle"... You get the idea.
[The USSR vetoed the sanctions package when it came up for vote at UNSC on January 13, 1980]. "Cynical!" - Carter said. Yep, that's a fair conclusion.
This is tricky, and the more you read about it, the more you understand that, actually, Marxism-Leninism had little to do with it. The issue at stake was US credibility, and the (not unreasonable) notion that any weakness - even in places of marginal importance - would be fatal.
US diplomatic records are replete with discussions of this crisis or that and how US "humiliation" (through non-action, withdrawal etc) would undermine American broader credibility & its standing with allies. Interestingly, the same logic also underpinned Soviet interventionism.
This is the tragedy of superpower politics: you have to defend your "credibility" even where you have no vital interests. That's because your credibility *is* your vital interest.
This take by @StateDeputySPOX draws on @CWIHP materials but makes a number of bizarre points, which amount to falsification of history. Let me take this apart.
Here, @StateDeputySPOX claims that Chinese textbooks still claim that the Korean War was a "civil war." First of all, historians (not just Chinese historians but historians of the Korean War in the West) still debate whether the Korean War was a civil war or an international war.
The answer of course is that it was both. But it is entirely possible to argue that a "civil war" (neizhan) broke out in Korea on June 25, 1950. Incidentally, Chinese forces were not involved in the Korean War until after US/UN forces intervened.
The speakers' call for personalised sanctions on corrupt Russian officials is very reasonable. I'd only add that any such sanctions must of course go beyond "Russia." Corruption is not a specifically Russian phenomenon.
So if Usmanov's or Abramovich's yachts are chased out of European ports (as by god, I am only happy that they are), it's important to see whose yachts remain, and on what grounds.
Trump's pardon of #MichaelFlynn reminds me to post bits and pieces of an interesting document I recently unearthed in the Russian archives, which tells a remarkable story of corruption and treason. The dramatis personae are Nikita Khrushchev and Cyrus S. Eaton.
Cyrus S. Eaton (1883-1979) was an American-Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He was known for critical views of the US posture in the Cold War, and helped organise the first Pugwash Conference. He even received the Lenin Prize from the USSR in 1960.
In February 1964 Eaton travelled to the USSR where, on February 16, he met Nikita Khrushchev. They had a lengthy discussion of world affairs - not unlike many other conversations Khrushchev would have with visiting politicians and public figures. Until all of a sudden...
Brezhnev and Castro discuss Qaddafi. Brezhnev: "I think Qaddafi is just a boy. ... They have no idea about Lenin or socialism. What they do have is a lot of money. ... At the same time Qaddafi is a fanatical Muslim."
Castro: "I am not too sure that they are fanatical Muslims. I think these are just rude, uncultured, impolite, and, I would say, ill-meaning people."
Castro on Qaddafi: "My general impression is that he is crazy or at least half-crazy."