Matt Brown
11/7/08
President Dmitry Medvedev moved yesterday to entrench the current Russian leadership's grip on power by proposing a presidential term that would extend the stint in office from four to six years. Medvedev said the extension was necessary to guarantee stability and help Russia deal with huge global challenges. But critics said the proposal was further evidence of Russia's alarming and rapid drift towards authoritarianism. In his first state of the nation address yesterday, Medvedev also said he was deploying cruise missiles in western Russia to "neutralise" the Pentagon's missile defence system - and lambasted the US for its "arrogant course" and "unilateralism.” Speaking hours after Barack Obama was voted in as the next American president, Medvedev said Russia would site short-range Iskander nuclear-capable missiles next door to Poland, in Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. The Iskander missiles would be targeted at the US's missile defence and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, Medvedev said. Medvedev's threat - with its echoes of cold war-style confrontation along the frontiers of eastern Europe - is likely to be an early foreign policy headache for Obama, as his fledgling administration seeks to improve ties with the EU.
I believe that Russian President Medvedev is trying to do what is right for his country, but is disregarding the fragile state of the world around Russia. President Obama will have many headaches as soon as he starts this term in office, and Russia will surely be one of them. Medvedev does not seem to be paying attention to what other nations think of his policies. He does not seem to care. He seems to be going down the path to Authoritarianism in which he cares neither what other nations think nor what his own people think of his policies. Russia has a long history of this ideology, and I hope, for all of our sakes, that Medvedev does not continue along this path.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/06/putin-kremlin-russia
2 comments:
Such an authoritarian approach leaves me thinking that what happened in August will happen again in another country and more and more developments to cold-wars will begin all over the world just because some political leader has an ego.
Russia is so openly defensive and I wonder how many of their people feel the same way as their government, it would probably be hard to get an accurate answer because some might be afraid to say anything against their government.I hope that this does not cause too many problems in the future because there is so much more going on in the world that deserves attention. I would hate to have such long terms for my political leader.I would feel stuck and hopeless (if it was a leader I didn't believe in).
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