PRESIDENT PUTIN, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!
AND MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN!
PHOTO CREDIT
Dear President Putin,
The fact is, you have two choices.
Live with the West in peace. Or destroy yourselves in war.
Russia need not be in perpetual conflict with the west. You may have patience, as you say, thinking you can drag out the war to your advantage. The fact is, the Ukrainians might shortly take Crimea, Russia’s only naval base projecting Russian power to the south of Europe and the Mediterranian region.
The Europeans, Turks, Americans and others, will never let you control the seas serving the underbelly of Europe connecting commerce and NATO military to the Mideast, Asia and Africa. Remember: most of the NATO nations have not yet entered the fray!
Catherine the Great is dead. But you are alive and can make better choices.
Yours is the largest nation on this planet, filled with a wealth of natural resources. The Russian people hardly need more territory. What they need is a good economy, safety, and peace.
Your fear of NATO is specious and you know it. It is not that NATO is threatening Russia, as you’ve repeatedly asserted. It is that, with the Baltic and Crimea as this map shows, Russia has surrounded and threatens all NATO nations.
IT’S A WAR YOU CANNOT, AND WILL NOT, WIN.
NATO was aware of your plans before 2014.
Your legacy does not need to end in the failed policies of your predecessors, unless you choose their path.
Most of Russia’s wars were noble. I speak of its defensive wars, Leningrad, not your mid-century invasions of neighbors that didn’t end well in 1989. Your expansionist aspirations certainly won’t happen in the 21st century.
Should Russia live in perpetual conflict with its neighbors? At what price to its prosperity, happiness, trade, and the free movement of the Russian people and Russia’s businesses? Are Russia’s citizens willing to suffer further losses to their prosperity, property, sense of well-being, and financial freedom?
Instead of living and enjoying a better life in peace with your neighbors, Russia’s prospects are stuck in mud, same as your sunken armor at Ukraine’s borders.
Meanwhile you continue to feed sadsack Russians into the Donbas meat grinder, leaving tens of thousands of widows and orphans behind. That Sir, is your legacy! Russian men falling dead today over yesterday’s fallen comrades.
You need to come to the table.
President Putin: With the House under new Republican leadership, Congress and the American people will not adopt Tucker Carlson’s daily talking points the Kremlin-based RT sends him.
The United States and NATO nations will back Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Aside these facts, take an inventory of your allies: Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, North Korea, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, South Ossetia, Venezuela, Vietnam…
Are trading with these mostly failed nations your hope for a future Russian prosperity?
THE PERFECT PICTURE DOESN’T EXIST.
Russia has murdered Ukrainians and waged war on Ukraine for four centuries.
The Holomodor is a daily reminder to the Ukrainians and other former eastern block nations why they will never give up. Look President Putin. If a single former eastern block nation one quarter the population and wealth of Russia can take you on, and they have, imagine what the combined NATO forces can do.
Almost half of global strategists think Russia could become a failed state within the next 10 years
You are destroying your nation.
Contrary to Tuckerite fairy tales, Russia is on the ropes, your resources will not last forever.
The Afghans never gave up. Neither have the Hungarians.
Ukraine is united with all of Europe and NATO at their back.
That is a great change from former Russian history.
Consider taking a significant short-term loss for an infinitely long-term gain.
Act before a settlement is imposed on you. Seize the initiative and go beyond what the west expects of you. Consider Crimea being taken from Russia, permanently, unless you stop the carnage now. You lease will be cancelled in Crimea because 1. It is not your land, and 2. you’ve lost your rights to the lease. Relinquish now what will never be yours and save yourselves.
Accordingly, President Putin, you must consider change. Withdraw. Offer Russia’s good will, resources, and talents to the world. There will be a big price, but do not think for a moment there are no mutual benefits, or the world will not reciprocate, or that the price isn’t worth it.
Provided you are willing to face the cameras, make your offer with solid on-the-ground actions, you can also win. Change the course of Russia’s bankrupt history before Russia becomes just another failed state.
Exit the bad trade. Cut your losses. Prosper.
Bad trades happen even to good traders.
Write off the Ukraine adventure now, as Ukraine has always been a bad trade for Russia.
Live for the next day, the next trade.
Reagan and Gorbachev changed the world. Gorbachev exited Russia’s earlier bad trades and became a historical figure. Nixon opened China. China became wealthy. These farsighted leaders tore down walls.
Anon said: “There are no enemies and there are no friends. There are only mutual interests.”
Mutual interests do not make enemies.
The West and Russia have significant mutual interests. The economic, cultural and political upside outweighs the downside.
Your hand sincerely extended can change everything.
It can change minds. And then hearts, and then the events.
Disappoint the West, Sir! Make the deal now.
Extend your hand of friendship. You will show strength, not weakness. Stop worrying about saving face, or over territory you really cannot hold. You will then tear down the walls that time, ideology, anger, reason and unreason, have built.
Clichés aside Mr. President.
* Think out of the box
* Reach for the higher ground
* Make Russia Great Again
Consider it Sir, while there’s time, before your successors reach these same conclusions.
President Putin, tear down this wall!
—
FURTHER READING
IS UKRAINE IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST?
PUTIN REMEMBERS RUSSIA’S PAST SO HE CAN REPEAT IT!
—
© Andrew G. Benjamin is in finance, real estate and equities, a former advisor to New York City mayor’s office (Subcommittee on Taxation, Finance and the Budget). Benjamin wrote extensively about politics, transnational and domestic, intelligence and military affairs, security and strategy, economic issues, Mideast, terrorism, technology and high end audio.
REVIEW THE ARCHIVES FOR MORE ENLIGHTENING MATERIAL!
