Posted on 05/28/2014 1:14:13 AM PDT by nickcarraway
There was a moment at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 when Soviet ships approached to within just a few miles of a U.S. naval blockade and then, at the last minute, turned back — prompting then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk to utter one of the most famous lines from the Cold War: “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.”
The crisis in Ukraine never threatened a Cold War-like nuclear Armageddon, but it may be the first case of post-post-Cold War brinkmanship, pitting the 21st century versus the 19th. It pits a Chinese/Russian worldview that says we can take advantage of 21st-century globalization whenever we want to enrich ourselves, and we can behave like 19th-century powers whenever we want to take a bite out of a neighbor — versus a view that says, no, sorry, the world of the 21st century is not just interconnected but interdependent and either you play by those rules or you pay a huge price.
In the end, it was Putinism versus Obamaism, and I’d like to be the first on my block to declare that the “other fellow” — Putin — “just blinked.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
if this is “victory,” i’d hate to see what defeat looks like...
Friedman is an idiot for thinking otherwise.
friedman was part of a group of liberal columnists who were at the white house to co-ordinate a pushback on obama’s supposedly(?)”weak” foreign policy
and this if friedman’s best effort at painting obama’s fiascos as success...
Putin didn’t blink, he closed his eyes completely to 0b0z0’s HashFAG attack.
Putin swallowed the Crimea and stirred trouble in the eastern and southern part of the Ukraine as a new threat to worry about by the West, meanwhile, NOTHING ABOUT THE CRIMEA!
If Putin keeps “blinking” that way, watch out for him taking an insignificant piece of land from an Eastern European NATO country and challenging NATO to apply article 5.
NATO, led by this HashFAG administration, would be proven impotent (oh, no, we won’t start a military confrontation over a ranch, etc.) and all what they’ll do is to nuke Putin with their patented HashFAG attack.
The blinking possibilities are endless, after all, the NY SLIMES said so!
Putin still pockets Crimea, and Putin still controls Ukraine’s gas supplies. Putin also got an assurance that Ukraine will NEVER be part of NATO, and will be further stripped of its military power.
In the final stages it was all about each side saving face and preventing Nuclear War...which was just 2 hours from exploding and both sides knew this. Neither wanted it because each knew neither would "blink"...rather an agreement had to be reached to prevent going over the lines.
LOL,Putin got his deep sea port and his buffer to the EU. Friedman is an idiot.
.....which was exactly why Russia went into Cuba in the first place....US was placing missiles throughout Europe at a rapid pace.... Russia had enough, then put theirs on our doorstep.
Interesting too was Kennedy sweetened the deal by “offering” to remove missiles from Turkey under the condition it be “secret”.
.....”or Ukrainians finally saying FU to the peace in our time appeasement westerners and going it alone”....
The primary ones now going it alone is the Kiev Nat’l Guard which is made up of Private Sector thugs who are no longer taking orders from Keiv Gov. They believe Keiv Gov. has deceived them so they are fighting against all Russians in the East to drive them out of Ukraine....(ethnic cleansing) doing so by using heavy artillary and killing citizens. This has created conditions where Russian Citizens have begun to leave the East into Russia for safety.
Additionally Israel is arranging departures for Jews because of the Right Sectors violence and killing pretty much any who get in their way who are not Ukrainian.
The situation in Ukraine has far surpassed East and West differences, or that of Donestk’s desire for their own Republic and defense of. Ukraine Army recognizes this and why so many are unwilling to fight....it’s become another war altogether.
...drove a wedge between us and our European Allies, getting us closer to being ejected from European affairs, which has been the Holy Grail of Soviet/Russian foreign policy since 1944...
Actually Friedman got his marching orders from Obama to.keep.the CIA leak off the front page.and this is what he came up with.
After an all nighter on the blotter and hash.
1. Weakened the Russian economy - by annexing a major port, and a chunk of vital manufacturing in eastern Ukraine. BZZZZT
2. China getting a bargain gas deal - Russia just got the biggest customer on earth for their #1 resource. BZZZZZT
3. Revived NATO - who did nothing to help Ukraine. Merely got talking heads talking again. BZZZZZT
4. Spurred Europe ending its addiction to Russian gas - Doesn't mean they'll actually do it. They won't. BZZZZZT.
5. Began a debate across Europe about increasing defense spending - More talking heads talking. Yeah, that hurts Putin soooo much. Again, call me if it ever happens. Hint: it won't. Europeans are too comfortable in their Socialist havens to give up anything for non-Russian gas or for military expenditures. ("Let America do that stuff!") BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
Sorry Tommy, you do not move on to the next round.
Thanks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the powers that be simply have more confidence in Putin to administer eastern Ukraine than the Kiev government.
“Read once that Joe Kennedy money didn’t hurt.”
Possibly, though I couldn’t imagine it would be necessary. The compromise worked fine for both.
I don’t even think less of Kennedy for making the deal; I’m no fan of his, but that is what politicians do. They avoided (for a few years) a wider conflict until the proxy war in Vietnam.
Thomas Friedman is so stupid that he thinks that Putin “blinked” on the Ukraine. When you send SFB/KGB agents and plain-clothed Spetznatz troops into a neighboring country to destabilize it and set up a fake secessionist movement, it is called “war”.
Putin didn’t “blink”. He stuck his fingers in Ukraine’s eyes and then kicked it in the balls.
To Friedman, this is progress towards peace. To Hitler, it was the first steps to WW2. Some of us remember history. It is ashame that Tom Friedman doesn’t.
Agreed.
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