The Duck of Minerva

Maia Gemmill

Recent Posts

The Putin phenomenon

by Maia Gemmill | 6 September, 2007 |

I find it difficult sometimes to adequately explain to Americans Vladimir Putin's popularity in Russia. We get media stories about Putin's tightening hold on media and political freedoms, and Americans automatically assume that the Russian people must resent this creeping dictatorship.Yet Putin is highly popular, with poll numbers achieved only by American presidents in the aftermath of a major crisis. His positives consistently rank in the high 70s--his disapproves are lower than Bush's approval rating.Some of Putin's popularity is easy to explain: Russia is a richer and less chaotic place...

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Gut check

by Maia Gemmill | 6 September, 2007 |

While I was in grad school, I helped to make ends meet by tutoring high school students. Believe or not, I'm actually high-school competent in a wide variety of subjects. Unfortunately, though, a lot high school-level work follows this pattern: plug numbers into formula, write answer, move on. While this might not sound like a bad strategy, my students often accepted that whatever answer they got must be correct, by virtue of having been spit out by their calculators.* Conversations tended to go like this.Me (watching student scribble down answer to physics problem): "Do you really think...

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An empire of language

by Maia Gemmill | 1 September, 2007 |

Jack Shafer at Slate draws our attention to an advertising section included in yesterday's Washington Post: Russia Beyond the Headlines. Most people I know with an interest in Russia are also fascinated by Soviet propaganda, and Shafer, I think, correctly identifies this as a particularly amusing, if less effective, example of the genre.It also provides an interesting window into the psyche of the Russian government, though. Take this piece on the position of the Russian language in post-Soviet space. During Soviet times, Great Russian nationalism may have been denounced as a bourgeois...

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Quick, fetch the smelling salts

by Maia Gemmill | 22 August, 2007 |

I'm back in town after having been blissfully detached from the news cycle for two weeks. I seem to have missed quite a lot: resumption of long-range bomber flights, the bombing of the Nevsky Express, yet another (alleged) Russian incursion into Georgian airspace.I'm still working on catching up with everything. In the meantime, here's something for your viewing pleasure: manly man Vladimir Putin goes shirtless in the Siberian forest. Note the crucifix perched on his well-defined pecs. Oo-la-la.

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Mysterious missiles

by Maia Gemmill | 9 August, 2007 |

Are you following the tale of mysterious missile that Georgian officials claim was launched by a Russian plane violating Georgian air space?The Russians are counter-claiming Georgian provocateuring, which seems patently silly. Both sides are offering a variety of reasons why they could not possibly have been the source of the missile. Now, Kommersant is claiming that the Georgians, after having examined the remains of the missile and declared it to be definitely, absolutely, Russian, have destroyed the wreckage. I haven't found any other corroborating reports, yet.

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Depressing thought of the day

by Maia Gemmill | 7 August, 2007 |

I'm currently reading about the economic impact of the demographic shift (i.e., aging populations) of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. One of the reforms being advocated to improve the solvency of the pension systems is, of course, raising the retirement age, which in most of these countries is 60 or lower. Raising the retirement age has been a common theme in discussions about Social Security reform in the US--the problem in a nutshell (for all of these pension systems) is that too many old people collect too many benefits, and the system is funded by too few younger workers. The...

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Gas pains

by Maia Gemmill | 6 August, 2007 |

Gazprom has a problem. We often read about Russia wielding its energy power as a political tool, cutting off energy supplies hither and thither to punish political foes. Last winter's dispute with Belarus did not fit the usual template. Although the script was similar to the dispute with Ukraine--Gazprom looks to double energy prices in new contract--the scenery was rather different. Belarus has been one of Russia's closest most reliable allies in recent years--there's even been serious, highest level talks on unification between Russia and Belarus.So why would the Kremlin allow Gazprom to...

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The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my ideological match

by Maia Gemmill | 30 July, 2007 |

Americans tend to have a very simplistic view of the world. For example: we are opposed to Evil Dictatorship. You are opposed to Evil Dictatorship. We are Liberal Democrats. Therefore you must be Liberal Democrats, too. I suspect that we are not alone in this tendency, but it has frequently gotten us into trouble. We should be careful not to assume that all those who oppose Dictatorships are George Washingtons.Foreign Policy's Passport blog has an excellent example of this fallacy at work. When I read Der Spiegel's interview with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, I was not surprised to see him praise...

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Blame to go around

by Maia Gemmill | 24 July, 2007 |

Today's IHT has possibly one of the most idiotic commentaries about US-Russian relations that I've read in a long time. In this column, [sorry, it's behind the pay wall] John Vinocur essentially places all the blame for the current deterioration in US-Russian relations squarely on Russia's shoulders.He writes:Does anybody out there remember Dick Cheney's harangue in Lithuania last year, the growlingly bellicose one that the Russians regard as heralding a new Cold War?Here's how that dreadful man, who is 800 percent responsible for the Russians suspending the treaty on Conventional Forces in...

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Lukashenka shakes things up

by Maia Gemmill | 21 July, 2007 |

I've been meaning to write something about the tit-for-tat between the UK and Russia and the strange and unfolding saga of Boris Berezovsky, but things keep changing before I get anything coherent written. So, let's take a quick look to Russia's neighbor to the west: Belarus.Belarus gets little attention in the western media. They haven't had an exciting people's revolution to cover. The president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, keeps a pretty tight handle on the media and on the opposition, which tends to be disorganized and ineffective, fighting amongst themselves instead of uniting in the common...

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