A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days: "And Now . . . Evening Wear!"

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"And Now . . . Evening Wear!"

Posted by Pejman Yousefzadeh on Fri May 09, 2008 at 06:28:44 PM EST

Back to the bad old days, at least as far as theatrics go. I suppose that it is nice and reassuring that ~~Vladimir Putin~~ Dmitri Medvedev told his audience that "war is bad, mmmkay?" and that we ought to be careful not to start any, but the message is . . . shall we say . . . undercut by a military parade that might have brought smiles to the faces of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko.

To be sure, we shouldn't read too much into all of this. As this article makes clear at the end, Russia's military possesses more bark than bite. But there is no question that President ~~Putin~~ Medvedev wants to remedy this. And even independent of this issue, Russia's actions towards former Soviet states (distressingly, no one on the Presidential campaign trail is talking about Abkhazia and/or South Ossetia) and the internal repression that has returned to Russia is quite enough to cause observers to wonder and worry about Russia's intentions and ambitions.

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