OE Watch Commentary: Shortly after the conclusion of the Russian presidential election in March, the Cuban media announced their support of Vladimir Putin’s victory. As the accompanying excerpted article from Granma, a Cuban government newspaper, notes, “the core of Putin’s success consists of having achieved sustained development in Russia, in political, economic, and social terms.” Cuban support for Putin is not shocking considering the Cuban government views Putin to be “the alternative to a unipolar world created by the United States in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
The excerpt hails Russia’s continued development of “innovating weapons models developed by [Russia]” in response to the United States’ “installation of close to 400 military bases around [Russia].” The article suggests that despite Cuba’s decreased reliance on the former Soviet State, Cuba remains supportive of Russian geopolitical objectives. End OE Watch Commentary (Kelsay)
The answer is simple: because Russia and China are the alternative to a unipolar world created by the United States in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Could any country, France, for example, refuse to follow the steps dictated to it by the United States? No, not even if it wanted to, but it could if US hegemony were to break….
…The disintegration of the USSR came accompanied by the destruction of its armed forces, its social security system, the obliteration of its industry, and the reduction of the living standard it had enjoyed….
…The core of Putin’s success consists of having achieved sustained development in Russia, in political, economic, and social terms; of being the standard-bearer of Russian ideology who restores the loftiest national, moral, religious, cultural, artistic, and philosophical values that have always constituted Russian civilization; and of having strengthened that country’s armed forces to defend the sovereignty, riches, liberty, and independence of Russia.
This is what stands out from President Putin’s yearly address before the Federal Assembly of Russia in which, in addition to the achievements attained in the social field, he referred to the innovating weapons models developed by his country in response to the unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) Treaty when the United States installed around Russia an antimissiles system that impairs the strategic nuclear parity that was achieved; to the new US nuclear doctrine that enables it to employ nuclear weapons whenever it wants to and against anyone it wants to; and to the installation of close to 400 military bases around it. Only then, did Russia develop new strategic weapons models.