Putin's Pipe Dream.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Geopolitics: The temporary cutoff of gas to Ukraine by Putin's Russia is just the latest proof that the days of the czars and Russia's imperial ambitions may not be over. There's still a bear in the woods.

Earlier this year, former KGB Col. Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian parliament and told the captive (no pun intended) audience that the "demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest political catastrophe of the century." If he has a favorite song, it must be "Those Were the Days."

In that context, it shouldn't be surprising that Putin celebrated the New Year, as we have noted, by temporarily cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine on the pretext of attempting to force it to pay the market price, something that's not an issue with more pliable neighbors like neo-satellite Belarus.

Russia, in its Soviet incarnation, used to be a player on the world stage, and it wants to be one again. The Red Army once seemed poised to plunge though Germany's Fulda Gap in an unstoppable dash to the English Channel. Now it has its hands full with an insurgency in Chechnya.

Its Marxist economy was supposed to leave us in its dust. Today, in sheer size, the Russian economy lags behind the economies of Holland, Mexico and Brazil, among others. In terms of per capita income, the average Russian is behind the average citizen of countries like Malta, Brunei, Chile and Uruguay.

Democracy used to be Russia's hope; now it's Moscow's enemy. The gas shut-off had as much to do with Ukraine's acceptance of democracy as any sweetheart deal it used to have.

Putin opposed the Orange Revolution that sprang up in reaction to a fraudulent election engineered to keep a Russian stooge in power. The Ukrainian people forced a new election ...