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There are plenty of other scenarios possible, including one dictated by Occam's razor: 3) No backchannel negotiation of any sort has taken place. Putin is just
by laureny 13y ago
There are plenty of other scenarios possible, including one dictated by Occam's razor:
3) No backchannel negotiation of any sort has taken place. Putin is just looking at the situation pragmatically and he understands that harboring Snowden would cause more harm than good to Russia.
This reminds me of a story that happened in 2012 where thieves managed to steal the secret recipe of Coca Cola and offered to sell it to Pepsi. Pepsi immediately called the FBI and had the thieves arrested ([1]).
Putin is exactly in Pepsi's situation: gaining knowledge of the confidential information that Snowden detains has very little benefit and very, very high cost. Simply not worth it.
[1] http://www.uber-facts.com/2012/12/3-arrested-in-coca-cola-secret-trade-scheme/ http://www.uber-facts.com/2012/12/3-arrested-in-coca-cola-se...
- kposehn 13y agoNot really. Putin is former FSB and Russia's interests always are defined by having a security state. Today, during the Soviets and before with the Tsar, Russia has always used a heavily authoritarian regime to maintain security. They must in order to maintain sovereignty. While there could be simple pragmatism here, Putin does not operate as a pragmatist and it is in his direct interest to keep the leaks to a minimum so that they can be the sole ones to know of how it operates. After all, if they know how we're spying and their own adversaries don't, they're better off.
- laureny 13y agoI'm having a very hard time parsing what you wrote and trying to understand how the tsar/soviet era (or anything you say in that comment) is relevant in any way to the current Snowden situation.
- venomsnake 13y agoRussia has been playing the Great Game in its sleep since Peter The Great. This country is always changing and always staying the same. So while the ideology of the high command may change you always have very strong central government which is chasing Russian interests with great zeal.
- vetinari 13y agoThey are very similar to UK in this regard.
- mscarborough 13y agoOr the United States, Canada, China, etc. What government is not chasing their own interests (not necessarily the interests of their people, but the bureaucratic body itself).
- geoka9 13y ago> They must in order to maintain sovereignty. There's no way for Russia to be sovereign without being authoritarian?
- anonymfus 13y agoThis is just piece of Putin's propaganda: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_democracy http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_democracy Core idea is that because population is monolithic then there is no need for fair elections because result is known and constant.