History is replete with “coincidences” appropriated by talented appropriators, from Egyptian priests and the augurs of Rome to modern miracle workers, to serve as portentous omens of things to come. However some of these coincidences may not have been coincidences at all, but omens, which those same miracle workers of modernity have pretended not to have noticed at all. One of such omens was the 2000 choice of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as the next President of Russia, after the calamitous drunk Boris Yeltsin.
Over the last decade Vladimir Putin has proved himself as an enormously capable man, but this is mostly an ex post facto impression. Yes, by now he has indeed proved himself beyond all expectations, but in 1999 he was the consummate unknown. I am sure that at the start line there were a number of other capable men like him, besides him, who just as well might have been chosen. Putin’s particular luck, I believe, was his fluent knowledge of German, and his lengthy experience as a KGB agent stationed in East Germany.
Putin’s fluency in German was in itself, before the fact, a telltale omen of Russia’s choice of political course in the first century of the new millennium, a brilliant long-term projection of the new Russian-German anti-American alliance, based on their mutual resentment of America’s arrogant geopolitical posture, dismissive and condescending toward nations with ages-long great-power mentality. Thus, in the preconceived scheme of things, the next leader of a reemerging Russia had to be a fluent German speaker, rather than an English speaker, which would have been more common.
Had Putin learned English, or French or Spanish at school, he might have become a very capable soldier for Russia, but hardly, at least not right away, the anointed leader for the New Russian-German Century.
Over the last decade Vladimir Putin has proved himself as an enormously capable man, but this is mostly an ex post facto impression. Yes, by now he has indeed proved himself beyond all expectations, but in 1999 he was the consummate unknown. I am sure that at the start line there were a number of other capable men like him, besides him, who just as well might have been chosen. Putin’s particular luck, I believe, was his fluent knowledge of German, and his lengthy experience as a KGB agent stationed in East Germany.
Putin’s fluency in German was in itself, before the fact, a telltale omen of Russia’s choice of political course in the first century of the new millennium, a brilliant long-term projection of the new Russian-German anti-American alliance, based on their mutual resentment of America’s arrogant geopolitical posture, dismissive and condescending toward nations with ages-long great-power mentality. Thus, in the preconceived scheme of things, the next leader of a reemerging Russia had to be a fluent German speaker, rather than an English speaker, which would have been more common.
Had Putin learned English, or French or Spanish at school, he might have become a very capable soldier for Russia, but hardly, at least not right away, the anointed leader for the New Russian-German Century.
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