When so many Britons decided to slit the throats of so many others and Brexit, Vladimir Putin roared his approval. It was a big win for the little man, a win he needed bad. The Brits tossed out the accumulated work of every Prime Minister since Pitt the Elder, opening Europe to Putin’s manipulations. At no cost to Russia.
If you think this is weird, it gets a lot weirder.
Last week Publius was in London, a town he knows very well. The place was booming like no capital in Europe. Business is roaring, new construction is going up everywhere and, whether its Oxford Street or Camden Town, you can’t move for all the tourists. Literally. Walking the 3-4 minutes from the Camden Town underground to the Market can take 20+ as you edge through the masses. Once you’re there, it’s pure hell.
Until Brexit, the UK still benefits from D-Day: Europe is its landing ground. The UK is the key junction between the rest of the world and the Continent. What Nathan Mayer Rothschild foresaw when he built his bank in London in 1798 obtains to this day on steroids. Throw into his vision tourism and businesses of all kinds from fashion to aerospace and you have one of the world’s two great gateways. Only New York matches London for vibrancy, success and global market access.
Within the EU, the UK sits at the center of the world’s biggest middle class market: 480 million North Americans and 540 million Europeans, a billion people all of whom must speak the English language to do business with each other. These advantages are insuperable. No one else has them. No, not even us.
Who in their right mind would want to kiss this off? Short answer: no one.
Except, that’s right, Vladimir Putin.
Putin was supposed gain easy access to global markets for Russia, starting with the EU, to turn Russia into a business and tourism powerhouse. His core mission was to ensure that people everywhere read “Made in Russia” on everything from their clothes to their software and jet engines. He was to put Russia on a growth track for the ages.
But, the little guy didn’t have the ability to do what he had to. And he knew it.
Instead, Putin shrank Russia to meet his own limitations. He lead one of the most stunning economic declines in modern history. He foreclosed every market opportunity Russia could have had, shrank the economy to the size of Spain’s and then started barking loudly that his failures were all an American conspiracy. As is we were even slightly interested.
Putin started failed wars in Georgia and the Ukraine that eliminated whatever opportunities Russia had left. For good measure, he shot down a Malaysian airliner full of innocents and assassinated people he didn’t like in the markets he needed most to ensure his success. Like London. All signs of someone who is not all that intelligent and is deeply unsure of himself.
Putin is in a dreadful position. The prices of oil and gas, on which Russia depends to finance itself, have collapsed. Russia's economy is in deep recession with no way forward. Putin is begging China to buy from him, at any price that will keep the oil taps open.
He is selling off state assets to cover his fast-growing budget deficit and meet his vastly overinflated military pretentions in the Baltic, the Ukraine, Syria and his soft underbelly in Georgia and Armenia. Putin's mishandling of Russia’s operating and capital budgets means that he will have to steal back the assets he now wants to sell, a prospect that terrifies investors. No kidding.
There is one thing Putin can do to make himself feel like a man. Destabilize the 540-million person EU market that he could not bring himself to exploit. But how? He tried leaning on Greece’s crippled Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and on Hungary’s Victor Orban who shares his personality disorder. He also made military moves in the Baltic to destabilize NATO and the countries there.
Well, the Euros might slip and they might slide but as anyone who has been in Japan during a quake knows, flexibility is strength, not weakness.
Until Brexit.
That the Brits would happily give up everything in Europe that they’ve been building since the Norman Conquest a millennium ago was beyond Vladimir’s wildest hopes. To have the Brits voluntarily take London down several levels on the world stage and eliminate all the jobs and opportunities that come with gateway status to a billion people—all in your own language, let’s not forget—was for Putin the gift from the Gods. He could not have hoped for more. The EU’s very core, its center, collapsed right in front of him and he didn’t have to say or do a thing!
Better, Brexit will take a long time to negotiate and execute. The EU will be embroiled for years. Vladimir is overjoyed. With the EU falling all over itself and the US now turning toward the greatest crisis in its history, the Nine Dash Line, the little guy has years of mischief ahead and not a chance of anyone doing a thing to stop him. Finally, Vlad’s The Man.