Posted on 05/03/2014 6:24:19 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy
In a memo to the White House in July 1981, advisers in the Ronald Reagan administration urged opposition to a new pipeline from Russias oil- and gas-rich regions to Europe, warning that it would weaken the Wests bargaining hand.
Our strategy is aimed at limiting Soviet economic leverage over the West, Pentagon aides told the White House in the memo.
The Trans-Siberian Pipeline, which crosses modern-day Ukraine, was built nonetheless, and it helped transform Russia into an energy superpower that nurtures the European Unions dependence on its fossil fuels.
Nearly 33 years later, the warning from Reagans defense advisers stands prescient, as President Vladimir Putin, the KGB-bred successor to the Soviet empire, has muted the Wests response to his military incursion in Ukraine by relying on Europes addiction to Russian resources.
President Reagan clearly understood at the time that Russia was not interested in being part of the family of nations, said Larry Eastland, a State Department official in the Reagan administration. Anytime you allow someone to have their hand on the spigot, youve not only given them economic power, youve given them military power as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Reagan vs Obama
What a contrast.
The Builder vs The Destroyer
The Genius vs The Bag Of Hammers
WWRT? (what would Reagan think?)
Part of the make-up of conservatives to see the world as it is not as one would wish it to be. No need for rocket-science. :)
And now it’s 2014, and oh, ‘tis true, ‘tis true.
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