The Russian’s are behaving very strangely. Is their behavior an attempt to save face, or do they actually think Poland and the United States will just roll over? Strange.
But they don’t belong to NATO, What military ties are they speaking about?
Besides, who shives a ghit, they like to hear themselves talk. Trying to bring back the “glory days” of the old USSR. Ahh yes, the good old days, failed 5 year plans, stores empty of goods the people wanted, unless of course you looked in a hard currency store but that’s right, Russian citizens weren’t allowed to buy anyhting there because the Russians didn’t want to take their own money in trade.
Huh? When did Russia ever “co-operate” with NATO? When NATO had to salvage the Kursk for them?
As Russian forces crossed South Ossetia into Georgia, the moment arrived for inescapable acknowledgement that Putin had revoked the Cold War armistice. Justifications contain too many parallels to Hitler’s concern for Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia to ascribe less than brutal motives. Extravagant armored attacks through the Greater Caucasus Mountains demonstrate traditional Russian ruling elite neurotic insecurity; neurosis requiring rival power destruction without political compromise. Genetic, multi-millennial paranoia infects the current cabal to regard NATO, former Warsaw Pack countries, and former Soviet republics as encircling enemies. Such perceptions, not shared by the Russian people, repudiate years of Western support for emerging Russian representative government, political security, and economic stability.
There can be no permanent peaceful coexistence with a totalitarian Russia, but traditional warfare is not inevitable. Illogics lead this cabal onto unacceptable paths, but these elites remain highly susceptible to logics of force accompanied by determination to use it. Forceful initiatives require immediately curtailing efforts to integrate the former Soviet Union into the economic, cultural, and political life of the Free World. Next initiatives require increasingly serious discussions of cooperation and membership between NATO, and former Warsaw Pack countries and former Soviet republics. Finally, the United States must update Cold War plans through cooperative military exercises in Europe and the Mediterranean. This country must wage war, where diplomacy uses overt and clandestine activities to exploit, contradictions, stresses, and tensions between Putin’s ruling elite, and the Russian people and countries with which he needs alliances.
Such progressive, consecutive initiatives establish constraining negotiating positions Putin must consider. Such actions must proceed inexorably, subject to adjustment only following verifiable pacific initiatives for representative government and non-belligerent relationships with neighbors. Effective containment will reveal fragility of a totalitarian rule needing solidification within a disaffected, cynical population. The West must not squander this opportunity to make cruel subjection of Georgia become Putin’s undoing.
The U.S. should do the same thing.
Patton was right, and Eisenhower is going to be exposed by historians for his short-sightedness.
Why was the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) bastardized in the first place? Those countries not in North America do not belong. This is just more of the US not minding our own business.
I presume this also means “no more cooperation with the West in securing LOOSE NUKES”. That sucks big time.
Putin’s gone mad if he thinks Russia can control Iran and various terrorist groups, but apparently he’s gambling that Russia would be spared a major terrorist attack. Perhaps there’s been some secret pact of non-aggression, similar to what Italy did with the PLO long ago...but it won’t work.
I just don’t understand all the boasting and Russian mindset. And I was married to one (not mail order bride, she came to the US at 16) and traveled to Russia and Moscow.
I stood in Red Square and flipped Lenin the bird. Have a pic of it somewhere.
How does one say Good Riddance?Oh I Just did.
I hope the door doesn’t hit them in the butt when they leave.Its NO great loss anyway.
I don’t think NATO should have ties to Axis powers anyway.
I think this is a good thing. The only thing that cooperation was good for was to let them know how to defeat us.
I think that the House Elf is planning on something during our transition in leadership.
The more things change the more they stay the same. The Russian bear is back and Putin is pulling the puppet strings. Thankfully our president was able to look into his soul.
Ping.
Who gives a sh@t.
Drill here, drill now and send the Russian bear back into bankruptcy.