Vlad the Impaler

It’s always amused me that the West fears tin pot madmen like Kim Jong Il, Qaddafi and Ahmadinejad when by far the most dangerous foreign leader is the once and future President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.  Former spymaster and martial arts practitioner,  Putin chills the blood with this recent interview: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204358004577032533741783056.html?mod=WSJ_hps_editorsPicks_1

In it, he literally seethes with bitterness over how the West has treated his country.  He considers the fall of Qaddafi to be a “tragedy”, and says the only reason that we deal with his country is because “Russia is the only country that can destroy the US in a half an hour”.  He not only possesses billions in private wealth, but an enormous nuclear arsenal, and the nuclear submarines and long range bombers to deliver it. He has cut off gas supplies in mid winter to eastern european countries that messed with him, and built a cyberware capacity to shut down entire countries’ economies (Estonia, Georgia) perhaps superior to that of the Chinese.

Putin has said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th Century. Unlike the cautious technocrats who run China and fear revolution if their experiment in explosive modernization backfires, Putin has nothing to fear from anyone.  It is not unimaginable that Putin could “reclaim” one of the Baltic states (Lithuania, eg.) by invasion and dare the West to do something about it.  It is only by noblesse oblige that he withdrew from Georgia, a neighbor state who foolishly displeased him during the tail end of the Bush Presidency and which he invaded.

Vladimir Putin is smart, ruthless and hungry.   He fully merits our close attention and respect.