Constantine Pleshakov - The Japan Times

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Nov 3, 2002

A key phrase in my recent e-mail exchanges has been, "The world has gone crazy." The hostage drama in Moscow; the shooting spree in the Washington, D.C. area; the bombing of two nightclubs in Bali; the Finnish teenager who blew up himself and six other people in a suburban shopping mall; the killing of a Japanese lawmaker; the assault on U.S. marines in the Middle East; the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan -- all these terrifying events have happened in the space of only three weeks, and we are still trying to come to grips with them. Is this the World War III prophesied by many after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last fall? A world war without a front line and diplomacy, grand strategy and great battles, a war waged by individuals against societies and states when the attacking individuals are almost omnipotent and the attacked entities are bigger but all but helpless?

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Oct 13, 2002

Putin: More than a crocodile

MOSCOW -- What could be worse on one's 50th birthday than to spend it in a gloomy fortress, sitting in the center of a heavily polluted city as president of a problem-ridden country struggling for survival? Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin looked perfectly happy on the day of his anniversary, and the only people who are upset by his Kremlin tenure are his liberal critics.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Sep 28, 2002

Plague of smoke and scandal

MOSCOW -- The last few months have been tough on the people of Moscow. The exceptionally hot, dry summer resulted in peat fires in the capital's suburbs.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Aug 18, 2002

Putin faces oil slick on Iraq

MOSCOW -- To strike or not to strike seems to be the question in Washington these days. A part of the "axis of evil," terrorist-lair Iraq, an old foe, is currently under the scrutiny of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration. While military planners weigh various strategic options for crushing Saddam Hussein's regime, diplomats are busy talking to other capitals -- and one must admit without much success.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jul 28, 2002

Moronic student textbooks

MOSCOW -- When you visit a recently independent nation, ask what kind of elementary school textbooks their kids are reading. I must say the textbooks my kids use are horrific.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jun 14, 2002

Moscow's bloody Sunday

MOSCOW -- The Bloody Sunday of June 9 took Moscow by surprise. Nobody expected a mob of soccer fans, upset by the performance of the national team, to launch a drunken rampage barely 100 meters away from President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin residence. The outburst of violence lasted for several hours, leaving people beaten up, cars destroyed, high-end shops vandalized and Muscovites bewildered and angry.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jun 2, 2002

West-blessed authoritarian

MOSCOW -- U.S. President George W. Bush visited Russia just as a new wave of terrorist attacks was expected in North America. This grim background toned down the euphoric atmosphere of the Bush-Putin summit. Yet two things definitely stood out during the visit: the signing of an important arms-reduction treaty and the acknowledgment of the new strategic partnership between Russia and the West. The latter appeared more significant than the former: After all, the nuclear warheads in question will be not destroyed but merely stockpiled, and Russia has coveted the status of being a Western ally since the days of Peter the Great.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

May 5, 2002

Adventurer's death touches Russia's soul

MOSCOW -- One does not have to be a pop singer or a movie actor to have loyal fans all over the globe. Occasionally even a scholar can become an international star, as the recently deceased Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl demonstrated. A remarkable thing about his popularity, however, was that Russia was one of the nations that loved him most.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Apr 11, 2002

Russia's Mideast conundrum

MOSCOW -- The current crisis in the Middle East is a conundrum for Moscow. Russia's involvement in the area has traditionally been painful and controversial, heavily loaded with historical associations, cultural stereotypes and racial prejudice. Rarely did Russian diplomacy score a success there, while defeats have been numerous.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Mar 24, 2002

Yankee chicken, go home!

"Down with President Bush's thighs!" says Moscow. "We've eaten enough of them and they're no good. We're not going to cook them again."

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Mar 6, 2002

Bush's incendiary pulpit

MOSCOW -- It would be interesting to know who attended U.S. President George W. Bush's talk at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Feb. 22. Obviously planned as a mixture of calculated propaganda and heartfelt preaching, the talk targeted Chinese youth who hopefully will make China democratic, tolerant and prosperous.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Feb 28, 2002

Salt Lake City Games spark Gold War

MOSCOW -- Moscow is furious, Russia indignant. President Vladimir Putin frowns, the Russian Parliament wails. The people would be burning American flags in the streets if they could get some. The hotheads are already talking about boycotting McDonald's and "The Lord of the Rings." The nation feels humiliated and longs for revenge. Russia has lost the Winter Olympics.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Feb 10, 2002

TV sports trump freedom; public loses

MOSCOW -- There is no television broadcast in Russia anymore that is independent of the Russian government. Having applied the poisonous gas of legal niceties, the Kremlin has shut down the last stronghold of dissent, the vocal and opinionated TV-6. It was the coup de grace in Russian President Vladimir Putin's yearlong struggle against the alternative station. Now the Kremlin's interpretation of international and domestic events will go unchallenged.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jan 27, 2002

Film sours 30-year romance

MOSCOW -- The new international blockbuster film "The Lord of the Rings" has not hit Russian screens yet, but the first pirated videocassettes are already here, causing almost as much of a stir as a change in vodka prices and definitely much more than the recent news of the shutdown of independent television network TV-6.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Dec 23, 2001

Putin leaves Russia wondering

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be really excited about his new strategic partnership with Washington. For the sake of this still amorphous yet highly promising alliance, he has even decided to downplay his irritation about President George W. Bush's decision to withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Making a number of old-fashioned strategists in Moscow quite unhappy and another Eurasian giant, China, very angry, Putin expressed his firm belief in "the spirit of partnership and even alliance" with the United States or, more precisely, with its president.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Dec 15, 2001

A sinister Afghan 'deja vu'

MOSCOW -- The last major stronghold of the Taliban, the city of Kandahar, has fallen, though Osama bin Laden is still hiding in the entrails of Tora Bora mountains. Russians are among the few nations for whom news about the surrender of Kandahar rings a special bell. The city still occupies a prominent, though sinister, place in modern Russian lore.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Nov 24, 2001

Putin seizes the moment

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a very lucky man. Instead of running a Russian spy network in some sleepy Central European country, as his training and career once suggested he would, he skyrocketed to the top position in the Kremlin. There, inexperienced and vulnerable, he faced not the consolidated financial oligarchy of the new Russia, but a collection of disunited, bemused, wealthy individuals, whom he, to his own surprise, easily neutralized one by one.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Aug 19, 2001

The greatest show on Earth?

There have been only three notable 20th-century leaders who were addicted to trains: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Chinese leader Mao Zedong and North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. These venerable gentlemen would readily expose their tender flesh to the inconveniences of a long railway journey rather than suffer a short flight.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jul 29, 2001

Realpolitik outlook unites Putin and Bush

Why the honeymoon? This is a question an inquisitive person might ask when informed by the media that the second meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin had been a smashing success — like the first one a month ago. After a cold spring full of spy scandals, deportation of diplomats, mutual warnings and overall muscle flexing, an idyllic summer arrived. Putin and Bush are sworn friends, the White House promises to discuss the planned missile shield with Moscow, the Kremlin returns the favor by saying it has nothing to fear from the United States and both sides declare their aim to make big arms cuts.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Jul 22, 2001

CCP is going nowhere fast

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Summer Games, the decision was widely publicized as a move that would promote reforms in China, improve its human rights situation and eventually open China to the world. This is not unlike the rationale for awarding the 1980 Summer Games to Moscow.

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