A new Russia empire? Sounds like a stretch.
I think that Russia is threatened by the EU, and so is the US. Just look how the EU is treating the US. Bush can’t go there without facing government sponsored mass protest, but he is welcome in Russia. The Russia people were poll before the US election and they backed Bush. The opposite is true in Europe. Europeans HATE us! Allies change, and this is one of those times.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
You think? Read what the man himself has to say about it. Look also at his nifty work in Belarus and his centralization of power in Moscow. There is now not a single independent media source in Russia. Not one. They have all been shut down by Putin. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?
I think that Russia is threatened by the EU, and so is the US.
This is true, in a way. It is true in the sense that we live in a competitive world, and everyone is threatened by everyone else. There are no hard, permanent alliances (except, perhaps, ours with Britain and Australia). Russia is NOT threatened by the Franco-German controlled EU. In fact, they manage to cooperate rather nicely in geopolitical and economic affairs. However, Moscow is HUGELY threatened by an eastward-expanding EU in which Franco-German power wanes while the Poles, Czechs, and other former subject peoples' rise. A free and European Ukraine would further undermine the French and Germans and tilt the European balance of power more to the East (i.e., into the hands of our New European allies).
The Russia people were poll before the US election and they backed Bush.
I love the Russian people. They are an amazing nation. It's their leaders I worry about.
Europeans HATE us.
West of the Danube, this is becoming more and more true, though I still think it's an overstatement. We want to encourage the growth and power of Mittel Europe, and I can think of few things that would do more to advance this agenda than a free and independent Ukraine.
Just my two cents.