Reagan would have sat down with the Russians and told them “This is what we want, what is it that you want.” And together we would have worked through it. We have interests, they have interests, and they don’t necessarily have to conflict with one another.
I agree with the direction you’re headed there, and it wouldn’t have come to a situation like this, before Reagan would have headed it off.
Once again, the ineptitude of the Left rears it’s ugly head here. And frankly, the idiots on the Right haven’t been markedly better.
On one side you have the Left headed up by Obama and his vultures. On the Right you have McCain, Boehner, and various idiots taking turns embarrassing our nation. Think Libya, Egypt, and Syria...
Where’s the statesmen? Where are the folks who really know global dynamics? Hillary? Obama? McCain? Boehner? Lindsey Graham? We have a dearth of talent here.
I’ve said it a number of times here, you don’t leave the leaders of Russia to twist in the wind once the U. S. S. R. falls. You engage. You develop a working relationship. You build trust and mutual goals.
You head off alliances like that of China and Russia. You give the leadership of Russia a way to save face for their nation. You allow them to participate with the West so it can be seen as a player. You don’t have to give them real power, but you can allow Russia to have pride on the world stage. Right there I think you avoid situations like this.
Putin wants to be seen as a statesman. If we had created a role for him to play that in a way that didn’t give him teeth, we could have avoided this situation.
No, we didn’t have to conflict with one another. And yet, absent the close ties we could have had, guess what, that’s exactly what we’re turning to.
Reagan would have held substantive summets with Putin. He would have developed decent relations, and Putin and the Russians would have realized we’re all in the game together.
Instead we kind of ostracized Russia. We didn’t bring them along. Some of our leaders relished the diminished aspects of Russia. That was a big mistake. Now Vlad has something to prove to the West. “Not so fast jerks, we’re in this for keeps.”
It didn’t have to be this way.
Now what do we do, send Obama in on a tour de bowing?
One thing we better do, is rethink our military situation in terms of like yesterday, (or more like five years ago).
Our leaders better pull their heads out, or this planet is in for some very serious trouble.
Some of the gang here thinks you resolve all this by sticking your head in the sand and let Vlad do whatever he wants. When has that every worked with tyrants?
One way or another, if this escalates further, the planet will be involved. We either chose to stop it at it’s inception or we’ll face an amazingly more complex set of issues later one.
The first thing we do, is quietly stop financing our biggest threat, China. China must be put back in the bottle. I know folks will say that can’t be done, but if the West stops feeding it, China will be in a world of hurt in short order. It’s adventurism would stop.
This is hard-ball. We’re going to have to quit playing like it’s wiffle-ball.