Porbably on the lines of "he is Putin's puppet, nothing more." Lance I think what they are getting at is this stuff happens to oposition leaders, well potential leaders before they can organise any real oposition.

It's still wrong.  Hey sclayton where exactly can I go and buy a few AMRAAMs or maybe some an AEGIS radar system or say a nuclear reactor for a Virginia submarine?  Buying something widely available to all people on the open market and taking it apart to see how it works is one thing.  Taking information or paying people to take information about classified defense systems is well, treason if you are a US citizen, and espionage if you are Chinese.  Hardly just "reverse engineering".  Please don't play the moral equivalence game with commies.

The StrategyPage writers throw the word "stolen" around a lot
when it comes to China.

Acquiring a product, particularly a high tech product, operating
it to determine  exactly how it works and then taking it
apart and copying it is the time tested technique known
as reverse engineering. 

All competent industrial and high technology companies worldwide
use reverse engineering to one degree or another. It is a common sense
way to know what your competition is doing, get a good guess as to
how they are doing it,  and to make sure your own products are
state of the art - or at least competitive.

Example: When Ford built its first minivans, its team of designers
openly stated that they have bought Dodge Caravans and studied
every aspect of them including taking them apart and evaluating the
details down to the smallest component.  This was seen as a smart
move by a respected competitor  tying to get into a market dominated
by a strong market leader.

Reverse engineering is  both legal and common.

What opposition? The
United Russia party won by a landslide - 53% if I'm not mistaken. What
real "opposition" does the party have? To the average Joe Russian it's
a choice between a.) a party that's provided 8 years of consistent
economic growth, b.) communists (nice, but been there, done that, wanna
move forward not back), c.) the ultranationalist liberal democrats (who
are just gonna breed Russia more enemies), d.) parties that have not
really had a chance to prove themselves so, while having decent
agendas, are more of a risk than going with the centrist United Russia.
At least with them you know what to expect. There are yet other
parties, like A Just Russia, who are opposition in name only and ally
with United Russia.

National-socialist party also won in Germany once. What does it say about anything, except people wanting to get out of depression, have stability, have national unity, have revenge for humiliating WWI peace... and here comes Adolph that promises it all? Situation not that dissimilar now, but of course I do NOT compare Putin to Hitler on ideas, only on surface.

But Putin has kept most of his promises, and he didn't go to war to do it. That's the difference between him and Hitler. Or between fashism and democracy. Nothing wrong with fashism as a system, apart from the fact that it needs enemies to keep itself going. United Russia didn't follow that route.

Just because a party does not have huge opposition, does not mean that it does not have opposition at all. As I understand it, people there have problems distinguishing parties, but in this case people voted not for United Russia, but for Putin, who said that he will be the party head. People voted for the person they belied saved and continues to save Russia. But this is artificial notion. First of all many critics of the president were silenced. Independent TV station closed. Even comedy puppet show that made fun of all politicians (including Putin) was closed, primarily because they refused to obey the order to remove/change their moppet Putin. And there was constant propaganda of Putin of TV - you could not turn the TV on without seeing Putin in the news every 5 minutes (my parents have Russian TV via dish). Putin played on Russian nationalism to display himself as a person that throws challenge at the West... West that (in many people's minds) wants to destroy Russia, West that made Russia lose Cold War, broke USSR apart and separated Slav brothers (Ukraine and Belarus), humiliated the mighty Russian empire, West that getting closer to the Russian border with some evil purpose, West that bombed and destroyed brotherly Yugoslavia, and so on and so on. Putin plays the cards right and stirs up emotions. And finally there were directives to organize support meetings from schools, factories. Most people are easy to fool and in the vacuum of visible opposing opinions it really does seem as Putin is the only savior of Russia. But I sincerely do not think this. Russian ambitions are kept afloat by high oil prices... and I think that Russia is one of the reasons. It keeps feeding and supporting Iranian nuclear ambitions to drive the fear and thus oil price, as well as create weapon markets for Russia. Other than this, Russia failed in creating a serious manufacturing and technological base for itself to play a role in global economy outside oil (and whatever else it has) industry. That's why Russians are pissed - they can't play the role in the world (and they don't want to think that it is their fault) except by being an obstacle and they see it as the West's fault. West is the one that keeps the Russia down on its knees, and finally there is someone who spits in West's face, rather than being a clown like Yeltsin, and that's why they voted for one party (read voted for Putin the Savior of the Empire).

Oil itself doesn't guarantee prosperity. Look at Venezuela, Angola, Chad, Iran, Nigeria, Syria... What Russia's doing (under supervision of people like Medvedev, I believe, which is why he's quite popular), is using oil money to build up infrastructure and diversify, as well as redevelop high-tech industries so that it doesn't have to keep selling oil all the time. Apparently, Russia's weapons sales topped everyone else's last year. And, well, Kaspersky, anyone? And need I remind who ferried astronauts to the ISS for 3 years when the Shuttle fleet was grounded? So Russia is competitive in some industries. The problem is, after the collapse of the USSR everything fell into disarray, professionals left en masse and the new Russian Federation now has to rebuild many things from scratch. Maybe the current image building of a new Russia is to encourage those professionals that left, to come back. I'm half tempted to come back to Russia for a while after completing my degree, so I can't say it's not working :-p

I agree with you that United Russia floods the media with its image, it's seen everywhere! But as for actively silencing opposition, well, I wouldn't say that, given the constant antics of Lib Dem leader Yavlinsky for example. This guy I believe to be more dangerous than Putin or United Russia. Not least because he has a significant following - people "pissed off with the West" as you put it. Him coming to power would be my worst nightmare. Fortunately, most Russians realise ultranationalism isn't a great idea.

I hear lots of talk on
"totalitarianism", yet have yet to hear of a viable alternative that
would present a real challenge to the current administration. Yabloko's
often quoted as "opposition". I go on Yabloko.ru, the front page is in
English! I mean, what? Which audience are they aiming at? I tried
looking round to find their proposed policies. I couldn't! Maybe I'm
greatly mistaken but right now I see this "opposition" as having no
clear goals, no radical new solutions to problems, and existing only to
critisize the current administration. Most critisism for Putin &
co. actually comes from the West. (Berezovsky & co.'s doing,
perhaps?) Meanwhile, for very real reasons, he's popular at home.
Ironic, isn't it?


Viable opposition will not be allowed to develop. There are many parties and it is fine according to "divide and rule" principle. People's opinion is broken up in small pieces, their attention is out of focus, so the majority of people will vote for one person they know and trust. It is easy to create an image, a person to vote for in this atmosphere. And here comes Putin and his party. Ironic, isn't it?

Yes, and that happens all the time. I'm not sure what point you're making here. But if you want "viable opposition", again, you've got communists with support of 25% of the population, and in third place, the Lib Dem ultranationalists. Opposition is there, and it is significant. It's just not the parties that the West wants to see, so they're rarely mentioned.

It would be very
interesting to see how Western perception of Russia will evolve if/when
Dmitry Medvedev comes to power. Whatever will Berezovsky & co.
think up now to chuck at the new guy?


I don't know why you think that Berezovsky matters. There are many people writing articles in papers and magazines here (good and bad) and they sway opinions. Liberals will sway one way and conservatives will sway another way. And it does not matter who is in power in Russia. It only matters if he is not going against country's interests (US for example) and this is how state administration will view and judge him.

Berezovsky matters because, since fleeing to England with his money aquired by dubious means during the chaos of the 90's, he's done nothing but actively try to bring down the Putin administration. And for good reason, as Putin moved against the oligarchs, instantly making himself many powerful enemies. There are interesting stories often popping up in British tabloids about how Putin is the second Stalin etc etc. It's worth remembering that Berezovsky was a media magnate in Russia in the 90s. I believe he's doing the same thing in Britain now. There are also reports, partially confirmed by him, that he helped finance the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. He's pretty powerful with his millions and his determination.

Opposition is about ideas
rather than numbers. What can the opposition possibly say against a
6.7% average annual GDP growth over 8 years?


Growth fed by rising oil prices... over the last 8 years LOL. People just want prosperity and stability and Putin promises both. The question is whether he is actually doing something real to help Russia in the long run, beyond oil, Iran, and confrontation with the West.

Again, there are many nations in the world that have oil but no wealth or economic growth. Look at Venezuela or Nigeria, for example. For them, oil is a mixed blessing. I agree that Putin has had an easy run economically because he's been sailing on the wind that is high oil prices. But, I'll repeat, his party has been investing the oil money into the Russian economy, with the result that now we have new roads, new schools, new tech parks, new equipment, and most importantly, new personel. The results of this won't be apparent right now, but in several years' time they will make a big difference.

And Putin has delivered prosperity and stability. I've spoken to real people, friends and relatives inside Russia, and it's blatantly evident. That's why he's popular, because he actually made good on his promises, which is quite rare in politics.

PS: China will steal anything that's not bolted to the floor... including anything from Russia. China has it's own national ambitions and no one better get in their way.

Agreed. It's a revolutionary's way of thinking, the USSR used to do the same thing before them. Basically anything goes if it's for the benefit of the revolution.