Posted on 07/24/2009 8:53:06 PM PDT by pissant
Vice President Joe Biden is optimistic that Russia will warm to the West, given that its economy is "withering," he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The country's economic problems could force it to open up to the West on a range of issues, including loosening its grip on former Soviet bloc nations and reducing its stockpile of nuclear weapons, Biden said in pointed remarks to the newspaper following his trip to the region.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Looked in the mirror lately, Joe?
The U.S. economy is “withering” thanks to “Stimulus”, “ObamaDeathCare(tm)”, “Cap and Tax”, etc.
Yeah ;-)
I thought Stoli vodka sold well.
America’s withering economy will force change too. In 2010.
Well ‘ol dumb Joe may think the Russian economy is “Withering” but he must see a different Russia than I do.
They have hunkered down and retrenched a little but they do have surplus cash laying around which is more than I can say for us.
I am in Russia several times a year and most of the rest of the time am in Eastern Europe. Capitalism is breaking out all over.
Of course. That's what the USA did when economic problems struck two years ago. Oh wait...
And if not, then maybe this genius has a recent example of some other major country that, when faced with economic problems, voluntarily reduced its military? Especially when Biden goes and gives Ukraine and Georgia green light and weapons to do whatever they may with them? Maybe dirt-poor Georgia or Ukraine themselves decided to reduce their armies? No; what a surprise...
In real world if a country is getting weaker financially it usually boosts its military potential to compensate. That's what USSR did all along, and it worked. The reason is simple: economy is not always in your control, even if the state tells manufacturers what to do. However military is under direct control of the state and will do what it is told to do. Military might is not a perfect substitute for financial might, but then you have no better choice.
If Obama perceives poking the bear in the eye as diplomacy we have rough time ahead. But I guess that much is already obvious. What useful purpose could they both possibly try to achieve by attacking Putin (during 0's visit) and now Russia? There could be only one viable purpose - to keep Russia away from the West; obviously, that's what 0 wants. He may say otherwise, but his actions tell more.
Real good job, genius.
Democrat strategy:
"Alright, you guys, what's the most stupid thing we can say or do?
Agreed! Let's do that!"
Rumor has it that the Soviet Union collapse was staged by the KGB. Is this true?
it wasn’t Reagan’s fault?
No, it is not true. USSR fell apart because of massive neglect by old rulers and their (also old) assistants. The office of the Secretary General was transferred from one old guy, who died at the job, to another, even older guy who is also about to die on the job. I don't mean to say that they actually *worked* on the job, of course. They probably never knew how to manage a country, but their age removed even those remnants of sanity.
With all that neglect in full swing, incompetence reigned on all levels and there was no [market] mechanism to remove bad managers. At the same time good managers were not allowed to work. This destroyed economy; food and other products were hard to find, with people forming lines hours before a store would open and sell maybe 10 or 20 pieces of something. Money meant nothing even if you have it; you also needed to know who has the goods to buy with that money. People who controlled goods wielded immense power and were corrupt. All that made people receptive to opposition's voices.
Role of Gorbachev should be also understood - he refused to use force to keep USSR in one piece and Poland under control. Instead he decided to allow opposition to speak, and started instituting his own reforms. Those reforms did nothing to fix the problem and only weakened the union. Regional leaders, smelling blood (and money) in the water, started declaring independence and leaving the USSR. Yeltsin, leader of Russia, did the same. Pretty soon Gorbachev found himself a president of a union without members. That's when he resigned.
If you ask why member states of the USSR walked away, the simplest answer would be "greed." People who were just local governors became czars, with privileges of making laws and doing pretty much anything they wanted. Consider that those people were already power-hungry; when they saw an opportunity to become kings they took it. Some former USSR republics are now nothing but pathetic dictatorships; other are balancing on threshold of a war; a few other do more or less OK.
I see Joe is as much a student of history as his boss.
Yeesh, I can’t wait until they start talking about when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor...
/Bluto Blutarsky
Does the term Oligarchs ring a bell??? Obama, Biden, Gore, Pelosi, Reid, all forms of American oligarchs... reaping the tax dollars of climate change...
Funny word trick. Substitute USA for every USSR in your fine essay. History does have a way of repeating itself, its just not always about the same players.
“withering
Haven’t heard that word in a while. they forgot on the vine.
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