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The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West

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The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West

byEdward Lucas

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Top positive review

Positive reviews›

THE NEW RUSSIA INCORPORATED

Reviewed in Canada on April 11, 2015

A followup up book to anyone who has read anything about the Cold War up to the end of the past century. This book tracks the rise of the New Russian Political and Economic System empowered by Oil Riches. It's the antithesis of the Norwegian approach to Oil Riches. The book looks at the effect of the Fall of Communism and the Rise of Ultra Capitalism that borders on Fascism and the kind of Effect this new approach of Politics entwined with Economics has on the people of Russia and the balance of the World Order. A good look at Foreign Policy and the impact on Trade Relations that makes for surprising bedfellows.

Anyone who read Toffler and his books especially Powershift can imagine a Country becoming a Transnational Corporation itself and the Power that it wields in the World.

One person found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

D. Peter Humphrys

higly biased and polemical, fails to enable the reader to evaluate objectively for his/herself

Reviewed in Canada on January 29, 2015

This book can be an interesting read if you already are suspicious of Putin and the Russian system of governance, but it comes across is a very biased tone and the author really does not seem interested in allowing the reader to reach his or her own conclusions.

I find that he operates from the assumption that corruption is a minor problem in the West while it is rampant in Russia. This may be the case, but he does not demonstrate this to be so as he does not contrast corruption in the West with that in the Russia and then demonstrate just how much worse one place is than the other. Just because you tell me that we are less corrupt than the other guy does not mean that I will believe you especially when our former Prime Minister Mulroney accepted envelopes full of cash from a certain Mr. Scrieber and described it as "poor judgement" on his part. It was a bribe for favours, let face it plainly! Yet he is not in jail though he keeps a low profile since he is not exactly popular among the general population now. Our local MP has also resigned because he was caught violating the Federal Elections Act and then trying to cover it up. It seems to me that we have a good deal of corruption here in Canada (I doubt that is why Pat Buchanan dubbed Canada Soviet Canuckistan), if Russia is many times worse, my sympathies to the non-corrupt suffering Russian People.

3 people found this helpful

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From Canada

THE NEW RUSSIA INCORPORATED

Reviewed in Canada on April 11, 2015

Verified Purchase

A followup up book to anyone who has read anything about the Cold War up to the end of the past century. This book tracks the rise of the New Russian Political and Economic System empowered by Oil Riches. It's the antithesis of the Norwegian approach to Oil Riches. The book looks at the effect of the Fall of Communism and the Rise of Ultra Capitalism that borders on Fascism and the kind of Effect this new approach of Politics entwined with Economics has on the people of Russia and the balance of the World Order. A good look at Foreign Policy and the impact on Trade Relations that makes for surprising bedfellows.

Anyone who read Toffler and his books especially Powershift can imagine a Country becoming a Transnational Corporation itself and the Power that it wields in the World.

One person found this helpful

Reviewed in Canada on January 18, 2016

Verified Purchase

This was a gift so I think it was fine.

Reviewed in Canada on June 29, 2014

Verified Purchase

Ahead of its time when originally published. Now more relevant than ever. A Warning to freedom seekers.

One person found this helpful

Is Russia assembling a new Axis of Evil?

Reviewed in Canada on May 18, 2008

Russia is heading in an ominous direction that poses a threat to its own citizens, neighboring states and the world as a whole. This book with its disturbing message takes a hard look at the Russian ruling elite which emerged almost entirely from the ranks of the old KGB. Harboring resentment and malice against the West, this elite's attitude is crude and unsophisticated compared to the hostility of the Brussels Eurocracy towards the USA and Israel. The Russian government now directly competes with the West on various fronts, both economical and political. Genuine freedom of expression and the rule of law are long gone and the state has grabbed all political and economic power that matters. Putin's term "managed" or "sovereign" democracy really means a particularly malignant form of Tsarism or Fascism. In her 2004 book Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy , Anna Politkovskaya correctly observed that the brutality in Chechnya was an omen of Russia's future cruelty to all its citizens.

For a long time the West refused to notice. It should have woken up during the second Chechen war but instead there was only isolated protest in Europe and the USA, primarily from private bodies like the Jamestown Foundation and Italy's Radical Party. When Putin seized all influential media the West opened one eye then shut it again. When Khodorkovsky was jailed the same thing happened, and when the murder of dissidents and journalists became commonplace more observers expressed alarm though government criticism in the Western Alliance remained rather muted. This license to kill spread beyond the borders of Russia with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in the UK at a time when Tony Blair was almost embarrassingly amicable with Putin. More detailed information on the Litvinenko murder is available in Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB by Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko, and The Litvinenko File by Martin Sixsmith.

The media now portrays Putin as a hero that rescued the country from the "chaos" of the 1990s since the political class has revived the Soviet habit of revisionism. And it uses the Orthodox Church for spreading the ideology of patriotism and Russian nationalism, a policy that inflames xenophobia resulting in violent racist attacks on non-Slav and non-Russian citizens. There have also been signs that this church is reverting to its infamous history of antisemitism . Militarism and imperialism are integral to the new nationalism although Lucas believes that the aim is the "Finlandisation" of Europe rather than territorial expansion. In the West Russia has plenty of paid propagandists plus the romantically deluded species known as Russophiles for whom this failed state with its history of genocide, sadism and misery can do no wrong.

Lucas charts the rise of Putin (explained in horrifying detail in Blowing Up Russia ) and the course of the new cold war in a thorough and systematic manner, concluding with advice for the West on how to conduct and win it. Although he doesn't soon expect any military threat, Russia's nuclear stockpile must be reckoned with. The weapons employed in this multifaceted undeclared war are oil, gas and the revenues generated by their export. Instead of allocating it to real needs, the Kremlin uses the income to further its imperialist ambitions by acquiring strategic assets in Europe. Some of it flows straight to the elite for private investment abroad.

This war is pursued while Russia suffers from demographic collapse, massive corruption and widespread lawlessness. Ex-KGB operatives are in charge of all major companies and state enterprises, ensuring more inefficiency and corruption. On the international stage, not only has Russia behaved like a thug against Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia and Georgia, it is supplying weapons to rogue states Iran and Syria and their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. There is no shortage of willing collaborators in the West, like previous German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, although western investors have begun to realize that investment in Russia is not worth the risk. When foreign companies resist state interference they risk confiscation. A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia exposes the mentality, power and incompetence of the ruling class.

The geopolitical implications are staggering, as the Putin gang eagerly befriends all enemies of the West. Russia is pursuing an energy policy aimed at strangling the liberal democracies by e.g. establishing a gas cartel. Lucas warns the West to get its house in order by inter alia cleaning up financial markets and reconsidering Russia's G8 membership. Should a criminal state be allowed to remain in a club of civilized nations? Whatever other evils result from Russia's abandonment of Western values, it is sure to become a more barbaric place for its citizens and a considerably more dangerous international player. One may confidently expect it to supply Iran with nuclear weapons technology and to cooperate with every loathsome thugocracy that defiles the planet.

Evidence is accumulating that Russia seeks an alliance with the Islamic world and a partial restoration of the Soviet Empire through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization of which China is a member. The Kremlin ignores the real threat from China despite the particularly dire demographic and infrastructural implosion in Russia's far east. However, the Shanghai arrangement will bring the Turkic speaking states of Central Asia (plus Persian Tajikistan) back into the bear's embrace. Turkey's future role will be crucial; it remains to be seen where its recent Islamist trend will take it and how its foreign policy might change in case of almost certain exclusion from the inner core of the EU. Of course economic ties to Europe are assured but the country might establish closer relations with the aforementioned Central Asian states.

Should Israel be forced to act against Syria, Iran and Hezbollah an intensified Russian engagement in the Middle East conflict cannot be excluded. It might reluctantly be drawn into direct military intervention by its humiliated and devastated allies in the region. For those interested in prophetic speculation, I recommend Epicenter by Joel Rosenberg, an engrossing book based on the prophecies of Ezekiel about an anti-Israel confederacy which increasingly resembles an expanded axis of evil, an anti-western alliance that Russia is so vigorously pursuing.

5 people found this helpful

Very good analysis

Reviewed in Canada on June 2, 2009

This book is a solid analysis of new Russia under Putin and hopefully a wake up call for Western world citizens about the danger of nurturing cosy relations with a petro-dictator with imperialist ambitions and growing military capabilities.

3 people found this helpful

D. Peter Humphrys

higly biased and polemical, fails to enable the reader to evaluate objectively for his/herself

Reviewed in Canada on January 29, 2015

This book can be an interesting read if you already are suspicious of Putin and the Russian system of governance, but it comes across is a very biased tone and the author really does not seem interested in allowing the reader to reach his or her own conclusions.

I find that he operates from the assumption that corruption is a minor problem in the West while it is rampant in Russia. This may be the case, but he does not demonstrate this to be so as he does not contrast corruption in the West with that in the Russia and then demonstrate just how much worse one place is than the other. Just because you tell me that we are less corrupt than the other guy does not mean that I will believe you especially when our former Prime Minister Mulroney accepted envelopes full of cash from a certain Mr. Scrieber and described it as "poor judgement" on his part. It was a bribe for favours, let face it plainly! Yet he is not in jail though he keeps a low profile since he is not exactly popular among the general population now. Our local MP has also resigned because he was caught violating the Federal Elections Act and then trying to cover it up. It seems to me that we have a good deal of corruption here in Canada (I doubt that is why Pat Buchanan dubbed Canada Soviet Canuckistan), if Russia is many times worse, my sympathies to the non-corrupt suffering Russian People.

3 people found this helpful

From other countries

Niels Peter Hermansen

well written with good research

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 21, 2014

Verified Purchase

I do believe that this book gives a well researched picture of the Putin dynasty. He shure does need a critical eye if as I am a believer of western democracy. On the other hand I do recommend reading of other writers with a different point of view. Why? Because Lucas's viewpoint can very well be too biased.

2 people found this helpful

Daan Pierson

excellent

Reviewed in Belgium on May 2, 2023

Verified Purchase

insightful reading that discusses a wide range of topics explaining Russian agression

Raimonds

Behind a façade of democracy

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2008

Verified Purchase

The book provides a trenchant analysis of Russia's identity crises in the past two decades. The quests for that identity are still continuing and becoming increasingly dangerous for Russia's near and far neighbors. Edward Lucas argues, that the Kremlin has been unable to define its ideology after the end of the Cold War, and instead has filled up ideological vacuum in Russia with anti-Westernism. Russian leaders seek to win hearts and minds of people inside, and even outside Russia, by throwing down a gage to Western values, disputing their very existence. The book proves their attempt has so far been partly successful, as far as foreign businesses dealing with Russia are concerned.

Readers will be caught up by Lucas' talent to juggle with historical facts, figures and web sources to prove his statements, no matter whether that is the total annual amount of bribes paid in Russia ($ 240 billion) or the assessment of Putin's German language skills (passable). His aptitude to bring those into play is at least as efficient as the Russian president's answers in his annual tele-press conferences.

The author's word of warning for Western business and political leaders is not to be complacent and talk airily about "a strategic partnership" with Russia at the time, when the idea, that peoples of the Eastern Europe might genuinely wish to be in alliance with worlds free countries is dismissed as sentimental nonsense. Every Russian investment, as discussed in the chapter seven, is politically loaded expression of foreign policy made by Kremlin Inc., but energy dialogue between Russia and the West "resembles a battle-hardened chess grand master playing against a bunch of inattentive and squabbling amateurs". Instead talking about non-existing partnership he advises Western leaders to take a strategic pause, which would send to Russian politicians a powerful signal, making it obvious, that their thinking doesn't lead to a new civilization but a dead end.

10 people found this helpful

recluse

そう、何にも変わらないんですね

Reviewed in Japan on October 7, 2008

Verified Purchase

いや驚きです。25年ぐらいタイムトリップしたような感じです。そう、chapman pincherのdirty tricksを読んでいるような。そういえば傘に潜ませた毒を使ってイギリスにいるブルガリア人を殺害したＫＧＢの作戦がありましたね。もっとさかのぼれば、レーニンの「共産主義と左翼小児病」も思い出されます。金という新しい媚薬に眼がくらんで、そこで描かれたとおりの醜態を演じているのが西側のビジネスマンです。「自分たちの首を絞めることになる縄まで共産主義者に売りつけるのが資本主義者」という永遠の真理が繰り返されているというわけです。そしてドイツが永遠に変わることなく抱き続ける東方ロシアへの魅力です。秘密協定を結び政権の中枢部に第五列が入り込んでいるのは、第一次大戦後の独露協力を思い起こさせます。伊藤憲一さんに言わせれば森が持つなんともいえない魔法のような魅力ということです。さて、何にも新しいことは、この作品には書かれていません。ただ違うのは21世紀の現象面での新奇さと対立の舞台がもう少し東側の地域に移動していること、そして闘争は武力だけでなく、現代の武器でもある金融とエネルギーを使って行われているというだけでしょうか。そう意味では新しい興奮はありません。いつも変わらぬ地政学的な真理が若干の今では珍しくなった道徳的な熱情を持った文で描かれているだけでした。永遠の対立構造、そして日本もその舞台でただ一人で立たされているのだという厳しい絶望感だけが残りました。

One person found this helpful

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