Obamawan Kenobi

There are two paths that Russia can take at this point.  Actions on the ground in Crimea are deeply troubling but what is also true is that over time, this will be a costly proposition for Russia.  Now is the time to consider whether they can further their interests with diplomacy as opposed to force.

When you're dealing with a bully, it's hard to find words that will have any impact.  "On the wrong side of history" was a great line - Russians have something of a relationship with history.

The quote above, though, was brilliant. 

Think it through for a second.  Putin is a tough guy, hyper confident in his ability to swat down any opponents.  His pride is important to him.  If the US simply threatens consequences, so what?  It becomes a pissing match. 

But in the predatorial rush for conquest and the blindness of pride, Putin hasn't thought his position through as thoroughly as he might have (or, more likely, thought less of his potential opponents). 

This brings us back to "wrong side of history."  If Crimea is his Anschluss, Putin has good cause to look at what happened to Europe's last minority-hating, expansionist leader.  When you're facing unceasing resistance from within that gets worse the more oppressive you become, combined with external pressure (arms, economic), the long-term sustainability of neoTsardom becomes less tenuous - and therefore, less appealing.

Meanwhile, it's not just about short-term economic losses until and unless the world accepts the Russian Anschluss - if other countries kibosh arms trade with Russia, they're not going to wait to find new sellers.  China's got its sights on a couple of Russian market opportunities already.

Coming off of whatever high Sochi gave the Russian people, they probably won't be so excited to see themselves as being on the wrong side of history.  Especially as Russia's felt pretty wronged itself in the recent past.

Fierce resistance, foreign state consequences, low internal morale and permanently lost economic opportunities - all for one man's stubborn ego?  It's a bum deal and everyone knows it.  Except maybe Putin.  But those in his inner circle won't be so naïve.

It may be that no argument will sway Putin from a destiny with self-destruction.  That's unfortunate.  But there will always be someone close to the centre of power who recognizes the trend-lines of history and will consciously choose to land on the ride side.

You offer a way out to the person in charge.  When they refuse, you offer it to the man next to them.

Obama may not be as conniving in his planning as all that, but by at least framing the internal consequences of his action, Obama has given Putin time and cause to back down. 

Come, Putin, Crimea's not worth the effort.  Let's talk about the Arctic instead.

UPDATE 4/3/14: The trip wires must be laid out in plain sight, so that there can be no doubt as to the consequences if Russia crosses them.

Yup.  Set the field of battle and you often don't need to fight the war.  It's basic Sun tzu.

Leadership Matters: Why Putin is the Biggest of #SochiProblems

I've met plenty of egomaniacs who think they have all the answers.  Time typically proves them wrong.

Lots of interesting things happening in and around Sochi - the "non-existent" gay community is getting arrested for the crime of standing up for their rights in a bigger-scale repeat of what happened to Pussy Riot.  The threat of terrorism from some of Russia's typical foes still looms.  International guests are being made to feel welcome at the expense of their privacy - online, in the shower, etc.

Bigotry and the need for a micro-managerial level of control are typical from systems that are run by and supportive of aggressive, overbearing and egomanical bosses.  

But so too is another trend; bosses more concerned about being seen to be in absolute control are terrible leaders, creating a culture all the way down to the front lines where employees are more worried about their own reputations than serving customers.

You see it in bureaucracies, but you see this trend in far too many companies as well.  Sucky customer service from unmotivated staff?  It doesn't need to be that way.

This sorts of top-down customer service fail is on wide display at Sochi, as hilariously demonstrated through this Twitter account by the National Post's Sean Fitzgerald as captured by Macleans.

All this is clearly explainable at the neurochemical level; people are empowered by a sense of community; oxytocin makes individuals and communities adaptive, pro-social and flexible.  On other other hand, a focus on fear, dominance and ego focuses on a different set of hormones/neurotransmitters, resulting in competitive, dismissive and protectionist individuals and societies.

We've got a lot of leaders promoting the latter.  Sochi is a great example of the kind of mess that sort of non-leadership results in.  North Korea takes that trend even further.

Is that the kind of society we want to live in?

A Dirty Business: The Powers of the State in the Hands of a Terrorist

Making another favourite argument against homosexuality, Putin noted with pride that Russia saw more births than deaths last year for the first time in two decades.  Population growth is vital for Russia's development and "anything that gets in the way of that we should clean up," he said, using a word usually reserved for military operations.

Clean up.  As in, to cleanse.  Cleansing society of "nontraditional" people who get in the way of the strength and upwards trajectory of Mother Russia.  

This should all sound chillingly familiar.  But Putin's not the first Eastern European leader to talk about the need to cleanse his country of the unpure.  Greece's Golden Dawn has been making that same argument, showing just how far they're willing to go in furtherance of a "racially pure" Greece.  In Hungary, Jobbik is promising to deliver a safe and security society - just not for everyone.

Economic times are lean, politics has gotten dirtier and angry people are looking for scapegoats.  We've seen this before, too.

But back to Putin.  

Canadians fundamentally don't get Putin, because there is no one with his profile on our political landscape.  We look at the likes of a Stephen Harper as the epitome of political ruthlessness and efficiency, pummelling his opponents with attack ads and talking the tough economic talk.  

Yet Harper backs away from tough fights and would never allow himself to be photographed topless in fatigue pants, sporting a rifle.  

Putin isn't so obsessed with political attack ads and trying to undermine the very existence of political parties he doesn't like.  To him, that's amateur-hour.  When Putin wants someone gone, they disappear.  

Whereas Harper was horrified at the video he saw of Ashley Smith's time in prison, Putin would likely have shaken his head at the inefficient approach of the prison guards.  Where Obama hummed and hawed over the risks of collateral damage and brand risk with the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Putin has no such reservations.  

Putin is former KGB.  He's a bully.  He thinks he's smarter than you and knows that he's stronger than you.  

He's not pompous and delusional in the manner of a Muammar Gaddafi; he's not a cartoon caricature of the moustache-twitching bad guy.  Putin wears suits, takes part in photo ops, does the head-of-state thing.  As such it's easier, even more comfortable for us to view him through the political lens with which we're familiar.  But make no mistake - when he talks about cleansing and population, he's circling around a final solution.

Putin will not have articulated this sentiment - few ever do - but he likely feels about homosexuality the way he would about a virus like ebola; it's a contagion that threatens the health of his country.  There's a set trajectory that gets followed when leaders try to protect majority populations from infections:

- defining at-risk populations
- screening and surveillance
- controlling the infected groups through containment
- removal of the cause of infection, preventing further transmission
- cycle back to A with greater vigour

It's what the Nazi death camps were for.  The SS in particular were neat freaks - it's why the analogy between Jews and rabid rats was so psychologically effective.  But removing risky populations was what Soviet Gulags were for, too.  Of course as goes on, the scope of risky infections starts to spread; minority groups threaten the health of the majority population.

So do new ideas that seek to corrupt traditional culture.  To protect against the waves of troubles lapping at the shores of the nation, leaders must consolidate power.  It's a vicious cycle.

Of course, homosexuality isn't an infection, no matter how people like Putin feel about it.  It's a mix of genetics (sexual inclinations) and culture (definitions of sexuality).  Believe it or not, but not everyone breaks down their categories of sexual preference into "straight" or "gay."  Some societies have three genders, while in some cultures, individuals are believed to swap genders over the course of their lives.

However you define it, though, homosexuality is natural - not a perversion, nor a corruption, but something that is repeatedly witnessed throughout the animal kingdom.  It's just part of the great genetic soup that allows for adaption to changing environments.

So Putin is entering into a battle he cannot hope to win - but because he's so confident in his strength and power, the odds of him recognizing this fact are minimal.  So it'll get worse until he's gone, and probably continue to be be had long after.

Here lies a tragic irony.  By trying to eliminate undesirable minorities, Putin is doing the same thing as the terrorists who are threatening to muck up his Olympics.  Extremist groups, be they Vilyat Dagest or Branch Davidians works the same way, only from the position of a minority.  To them, psychologically, the rabid hordes of the inferior majority are like zombies, an infectious threat to be walled off or better yet, eliminated.

The Jewish threat, the Red Scare or the belief that America Stands Alone while Europe is Islamified; broken down, there's no difference between these points of view and the fear of any viral infection.  

It should come as no surprise that the tactics used by tyrants and terrorists are the same; the biggest difference is that heads of state have access to more resources.

There are far too many leaders out there today trying to cleanse their countries of undesirables.  The longer the rest of us choose to avoid getting dirty, the messier things are going to get.

Through A Crystal Ball Darkly: Are We Repeating History? (Part 2)

The Sochi games, like the ones in Berlin, will therefore go ahead.  The well-founded apprehensions of Jews have been supplanted by the well-founded apprehensions of gays.  But the broad strokes of it are pretty much the same, seems to me.

Economic difficulties.  Populations frustrated with government institutions that don't seem to reflect or care about their realities.  Those same governments playing the populist, vehemently nationalist "charity starts at home" card.  A diminished interest in rising tensions and violence against minorities abroad - partially because those tensions strike a chord with a watered-down version of the same tensions here at home.

You don't need to be a Hari Seldon to see where this path tends to lead; there still people alive today who've been down it before.

I disagree with Kinsella on the "we never learn" part, though - there are new dynamics at play that can and will alter the game board (though to what degree remains to be seen).

Western nations are much more diverse than they were before.  Social media has made real-time information transmission, especially visual, that much easier.  Citizen journalism is co-opting main-stream (sometimes government-controlled) narratives.  Individual norm-disrupters ranging from Kai Nagata to Edward Snowden have built precedents for citizens to buck trends in a way that wasn't as virulently recognized in the 1930s.

Then, there are nascent resistance groups like Occupy, Arab Spring, etc. that are global in scope.  Also - Anonymous, The Mule in the plan.

With communications clamp-downs, attack ads, hate propaganda and of course, enough firepower and fear-factor, all these potential mitigations could be quashed.

They won't, though, for the simple reason that a hate-and-protector based organizational model invariably consolidates power into the hands of a few, who inevitably make mistakes and miss key trends.

That's not the risk.

The real risk is an expansion of what we're seeing in Syria or Iraq on a broader scale - in other words, anarchy (briefly) and then a consolidation of neo-feudalism.

Despite the stringent, Big Brother-like security and surveillance Russia is putting in place to keep order in Sochi I'd be surprised if violent confrontations don't happen.  When has building a bigger mouse trap (or decapitating a few mice) ever worked in the past?

There are far more converging, troubling trends out there then our message-track leadership appears capable of distilling and planning against.  Fortunately, at the same time, there is an emergent collaborative process being catalyzed through the global Open Government movement.

It's far from clear what will happen next, whether 2014 will be the year of the burning platform or is there is enough wisdom out there to ensure we have a strong enough second foundation to pivot to.

What is safe to say is that we live in interesting times.

Sochi! Come to Sochi!

So, Putin wants to turn Sochi into an internationally popular resort, does he?  At the same time as he's taking his entire country on a homophobic bender?  I just hope he isn't looking for sponsorship from Apple, or any of the more than 60 big companies standing against gay marriage bans in the U.S.

The fact that one of Russia's athletes just caught fire doesn't help Putin's brand much - catching fire as a metaphor is all the rage, these days.

See, people don't just want selfish entertainment any more - they want to feel like they're contributing to something with their consumption.  Smart companies are realizing what politicians are slow to do - populism secures a base, but sucks at growing your market share.  For that, you need to think laterally.

So, in the name of value-added altruism, here's a little song I wrote to help Putin with his ad campaign (to the tune of The Flinstone's theme:)

Sochi!  Come to Sochi!
You'll ski and gamble without fear
That is unless you're queer.


Don't mind all the hiccups
With finance and construction gaffes
And don't question Putin
The man is not known to laugh.

Why do the torches die without delay?
Does Gazprom sponsor the relay?

But when you're at Sochi
You'll have a sparking time
We'll catch on fire in time

Let's have a gay old time!

Vladimir Putin Reads WAKATA

The Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official government newspaper, published the presidential decree Friday, listing an array of measures tightening security in the Olympic host city, including the ban on public assemblies. All "gatherings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets" that are not part of the Olympics or the Paralympics will be prohibited in Sochi from Jan. 7 to March 21, the decree said.

First, there was Martin Goldfarb.  Then came Stephen Harper.  I have a sneaking suspicion Bob Rae might have paid me a visit.  But this trumps 'em all.

The day after I post on the inevitability of LGBTQ protests in Sochi and how bad it'll be for Putin, he puts out a notice that protests are banned.  Yay for me, I've influenced Russian policy!  (It's at least a possibility - I have had 206 hits from Russia so far this week.  That's gotta count for something.)

Alas, even if I have inspired Putin to action, the poor fellow seems to have missed the meat of my advice - stifling dissent isn't going to work.  Not in a forum like the Olympics.  They'll never be able to screen out all protesters, nor scare everyone into submission.  With celebrity interest in the event there will inevitably be people of global profile poking the bear over gay rights and doing so in a public way, making Putin look like the tyrannical stick-in-the-mud he is.

How he'll respond to that communications crisis will be interesting, but even more important will be the international community's response to him.  We've had a lot of vague protests from Western governments against an increasing number of volatile, civilian-threatening situations in the world, but that's been about it.  Should, say, American or Canadian citizens are mistreated while defending human rights in Russia, they (and the IOC) are going to have to show some sterner stuff.  Their constituents will demand nothing less.

The simplest way for the West to head-off any difficult scenario around the Olympics would be to push for them to instead be held in Vancouver.  Russia would definitely respond to such a slight, though - and it wouldn't do anything to address the root cause of the conflict.  

The best long-term solution would be for Putin to have a Damascus moment, quit being a thug and start showing some true leadership by rescinding the law and promoting equality for all Russians.

If he keeps on reading WAKATA, I'm sure he'll find something to help him along his way.

What Do Omar Khadr and Pussy Riot Have In Common?

 

  

The Russian Orthodox Church said Sunday the rockers would deserve mercy if they repent for their February stunt. Earlier, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had said that keeping them in prison any longer would be “unproductive.”

 

 

Two governments trying to look tough and decisive are facing legal cases that are causing all kinds of political headaches.  Things are way out of hand with Pussy Riot - a political statement/publicity stunt that should have merited at most a slap on the wrist and some discouraging words has seen musicians treated like terrorists and their children left as collateral damage.  Where Omar Khadr is concerned, the jury of political opinion has largely condemned a man on hearsay; the facts don't matter when your emotions lead.

 

The broader legal ramifications are less of a concern in Putin's Russia than they are in Harper's Canada.  Although there is much in common between the political approach of these two men, we have a much stronger domestic legal system here.  Despite what polls and pundits might be telling us, Canadians are far less receptive to legal rights being trampled in the name of security.  When we are made to question the stances we have taken on Khadr - and we will be - I can guarantee there will be some displays of cognitive dissonance across the nation.

 

Which is a good thing, because there is much to question.  We Western countries like to believe we are bastions of free speech and tolerance; some pundits have, in essence, told those who took offense to The Innocence of Muslims to calm down or get a life.  Yet we are happy to vilify a child-soldier in the absence of fact and we are willing to lock up young women performers because they offended someone's religious sensibilities.  Here in Canada, we even threaten activists whose opinion we disagree with and attack officials who try to shed light on uncomfortable facts.

 

Both Harper and Putin are praying that their little legal bundles of joy will just somehow go away.  That's not going to happen.  The choices they have made or refused to make will have consequences, which is as it should be.  Justice is supposed to be blind, but it seems it's our leaders trying to block out inconvenient truths.

 

The Truth will set you free.