I understand it when people say “Russia and Turkey are the same” as a humorous gesture of sorts. But when this is said seriously, it scares me because one needs to amputate all memory of very recent events in order honestly to see no difference.
Let’s just look at a single little difference between the two countries. Who annexed a large territory from a neighbor by threatening to use nuclear weapons?
Annoying and distasteful is one thing – and Erdogan is obviously is all that and more, but seriously and calmly deploying nuclear weapons, as Putin recognized he did in order to annex the Crimea, is in a different order of magnitude. And by the way, everybody who was there when the threat was made took it very seriously, as we saw from later events, so let’s not start pretending that we know better and qualifying the threat as not serious.
I have no interest in “defending” Erdogan but I’m tired of false analogies, carelessness, and people’s persistent need to deny that the world is complex and varied and that things don’t need to be “just like” anything else.
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The similarities are obvious (authoritarian dictator shits who dream of reestablished lost and corrupt empires) but the differences are also telling.
Turkey under Erdogan has undergone tremendous advancement and its economy is diversified and growing.
Russia under Putin is still based entirely on resource extraction.
The economic elite of Turkey may or may not have problems with Erdogan but they support the idea of making Turkey a stronger country and invest in Turkey.
The economic elite of Russia hide their money in London and most of them would cut their own grandmother’s throat if they thought they could make a profit from it.
Putin has no legitimate son and is unlikely to start a dynasty.
Erdogan has two sons and that spells trouble (which one is favored to secede him? How will the other react?)
Putin desperately wants oil prices to rise. I forget exactly how but I’ve read that’s one reason he’s in Syria. Apart from that he’s mostly playing to a domestic audience that craves ‘stability ‘ (which of course they never receive). He would like important countries to recognize him as a peer.
Erdogan likes instigating and exacerbating international crises as a way of gaining international clout. He doesn’t care if other leaders like him as long as they fear him.
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This is a very insightful analysis and I agree with everything.
The point about the families of both men is very interesting. Putin seems completely detached from any familial relationship. In spite of the endless jokes about his only life partner and companion being Dmitri Medvedev, Putin seems eager to cultivate the persona of a loner. There is definitely no dynasty to be created here.
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These are all things I’d read elsewhere so I can’t take any real credit (beyond recognizing interesting data points).
I actually think the loner no-heir aspect of Putin is one of the (very) few points where Putin is clearly ahead of Erdogan (who was recorded talking to one of his sons about how to hide the big piles of cash in a house they owned just for that purpose from the auditors).
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The problem is, Putin is a loner in his private life. BUT he’s a member of an organization that will choose his successor, and the successor of that successor, etc. The guy is a puppet and has been from day one. That makes things more complicated because getting rid of Putin changes nothing.
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Unrelated: SNOW! 😀
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YAY!!!!!
We’ve had some snow a couple of weeks ago but it was melting in the air before reaching the ground. Even that, though, is better than nothing.
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I was talking about the blog snow. We don’t have any snow where I am just yet, either.
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Ah! Got it! Every year I miss it because I never look at the front page. 🙂
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You aren’t the one who decides when / if that effect starts??? On your own blog?
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No, I can opt out altogether but the dates when the snow begins and ends are out of my control. Just like in the real world. 🙂
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You could easily control when the snow begins and ends in your real world — move to Florida or Arizona. 🙂
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Giving it up altogether is a radical method of control. 🙂
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The absolute nastiness is just one possible measure of nastiness. Another reasonable measure is the ratio of what one actually does to what one can potentially do. No one knows how emboldened Erdogan would be if he had nuclear weapons…
On a more humorous note:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34979249
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As we say, if grandpa had ovaries, he’d be a grandma. 🙂
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You are quoting Putin! Blasphemy! Shame on you! 🙂 🙂
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What, he used this expression? Sheesh, I need to stop watching Russian television.
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My bad. He uses the original expression, not your “feminist-approved” version 🙂
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It’s the same uterus but seen sideways, so no big difference. 🙂 🙂
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