If anyone ever thought that the breakup of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 would result in a declawed, friendlier Russian bear wholly unable to assert itself on the international scene, recent events in The Republic of Georgia have reminded the world community that the Russian bear will be a very potent influence in the 21st century.
Vladimir Putin – a former KGB agent and judo devotee – is still smarting from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which he labeled, “The greatest political catastrophe of the last century.” Now buoyed by the economic stimulus provided from Russian oil fields, he seeks to reassert Russian influence over some of its strategically-positioned, former client states.
In June, 2001, when Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin first met in Slovenia, they both seemed to hit it off well personally. At least President Bush thought so, because he voiced his opinion that, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
Well! Well! I don’t know about you, but I have enough challenges just trying to get a good sense of my own soul, let alone anyone else’s. I prefer to leave that relationship up to the Almighty.
If George Bush was about to dance with this particular Russian bear, he would have been much better off to forget about trying to peer into Putin’s soul; and, instead, to keep very alert for the condition of that bear’s claws – that, it seems to me, would have been a much more accurate indicator of the state of Putin’s soul.
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