[Billthedrill]

Not so very strange by that area's standards. This is, after all, what Kipling named the Game of Kings. Alliances shift, fade, and reform, and we've been dusting some people to whom the Russians owe a very great deal of pain for Beslan. HERE is a thread Dog posted in which we grease some Chechens. We didn't go looking for them, they came looking for us. Too bad.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Russia will likely give us what we want. Their new NATO liaison Dmitri Rogozin is a strong nationalist who doesn’t want China expanding their reach into central Asia any more than we do. KGB Putin supports his red comrades in Beijing of course and has pursued a stupid and suicidal policy of allowing the Chi-coms into central Asia to help force the USA out. Instead the Russians should bring us in to contain China. We’ve already returned to Uzbekistan. Rogozin likely sees that having NATO in Central Asia is in Russia’s best interests, and our withdrawal would only be in the interests of Iran and the Taliban.