[spodi]

Any of you see or read his speech? If so, what's your opinion?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdai_speech_of_Vladimir_Putin

[IDNeon]

A frequent statement by "new Cold War" theorists is that Russia or China or both lack an ideology, they then say this makes them more dangerous, the statement and the conclusion are both false and evidenced by this speech.

Putin has a very clear ideology, one of multi-polarity. In ancient terms it is the difference, the literally difference, between Athenian universal statehood and Spartan city-state idealism.

The Athenians sought hegemony within their own Delian League and by defacto among all Greeks.

The Spartans sought to preserve the city-state ideology/tradition of the Greeks.

After 30 years of war and killing 1/3rd of all Greeks (2/3rds of all males) one could say that the ideological conflict between hegemon and multi-polarity is not only a more universal condition (Rome versus Celts, civilization "hegemony" versus barbarianism "multi-polarity", and many others) but a very deadly one.

Worse than mere hegemons competing for influence through hearts and minds with ideas such as capitalism and communism (both of which mean nothing since neither bloc practiced either).

[IDNeon]

Examining the nature of conflicts it is always the Hegemon who is the aggressor. This is true with the Peloponnesian war, Athens dragged Corinth into conflict through an alliance between two proxy colonies. It is true right down to WW1 and WW2 both caused by Britain and America respectively, as each represented the Western Hegemonic power encroaching into the "multi-polar" state sphere whether Germany or Japan.

Without the belligerence of Britain or the US WW1 and WW2 could not have happened and would definitely not have been as bad as they were.

So come to present day, Putin sounds very reasonable and he is, because it is the nature of all men to oppose the hegemonic force. whether it is civil war described in the royalist apologist Hobbes' Leviathan trying to reason that the hegemonic force represented the people, or it is in these concerts of power such as in Europe.