La France et la nécessité russe
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article-la_france_et_la_n_cessit_russe_15_01_2015.html
• Les signes que la France veut un rapprochement avec la Russie se multiplient. • Le 1/7 de Charlie-Hebdo ne ralentit pas le processus, au contraire il l’accélère.
Cette intervention vient à plusieurs moments-clef. Elle vient d’abord, factuellement et chronologiquement, alors que la Russie a envoyé une requête formelle à Paris concernant le sort du porte-hélicoptères Mistral, pour obtenir des informations officielles sur le destin de la transactions. (Voir le 13 janvier 2015, sur Sputnik.News.) Cette nouvelle ne semble pas devoir être interprétée comme un durcissement de Moscou, mais plutôt comme le rappel d’un dossier pressant qui justifierait qu’on cherchât un arrangement général pour trouver une issue honorable.
En tous cas, les Russes font comme si le problème n’en était plus un… ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/330856
The melancholy roar of new cold war
By M K Bhadrakumar – January 9, 2015
▻http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2015/01/09/the-melancholy-roar-of-new-cold-war
The Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned up his French counterpart Francois Hollande regarding the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris following up a day after he had sent a condolence message. It stands to reason that Putin offered to be in the barricades in Holande’s fight against terrorism. Russia can bring in crucial real time intelligence inputs regarding the radical Islamist groups, having much experience (and wisdom), having been a ‘frontline state’ for a couple of decades already.
Alas, the cooperation between the Russian and Western intelligence has suffered through past year due to the sanctions over Ukraine. The Paris attack only goes to underscore how dense the shared interests could be in the world of tomorrow.
Suffice it to say, Hollande’s remarks early last week that if there is progress over Ukraine the sanctions could be ended, once again flags that a strong body of opinion is forming within the European Union against the sanctions. The first set of sanctions are in force only through March 15 and the second set is due to expire at the end of July. The crunch time is approaching.
In retrospect, what have the sanctions achieved? A brilliant, dispassionate analysis by the noted American international lawyer Kenneth Kopf makes the adrenaline flow. Kopf is no friend of Putin – in fact, the served in the US intelligence – and yet he throws open a serious discussion from the American perspective. In sum, it is baffling how an erudite, cerebral mind like President Barack Obama (unlike his predecessor) could have fallen for the dogmas of the Cold Warriors in the US foreign policy establishment. In any whichever way one looks at it, as Kopf says, the entire sanctions route was “ill-planned, ill-timed and foolhardy.” (Read Kopf’s critique here.)