[Timber Rattler]

The beginning of this whole mess starts here:

Bush Urges NATO Membership for Ukraine, Georgia

We poked the bear, and now the bear has woken up.

[rbmillerjr]

Wrong.

That was eons ago and the NATO nations rejected Bush’s overture of bringing in Georgia and Ukraine.

The entire mess started because Georgia and Ukraine preferred to not be under the yoke of a rogue Russia with President for life Putin...who jails anybody who dissents against his policies and controls the media just like the old Pravda, Tass and Izvestia.

[Zhang Fei]

The beginning of this whole mess starts here: Bush Urges NATO Membership for Ukraine, Georgia We poked the bear, and now the bear has woken up.

Both countries provided men and equipment for Iraq and Afghanistan. Assuming Russia had cast off its imperial ambitions, this was probably a prelude to admitting Russia itself into NATO, thereby ensuring that Russia would never have to square off against China on its own. As it stands, China will probably eventually take all of Russia east of the Urals, when it's good and ready. And Russia will stand alone when that happens. Its silly preoccupation with the threat from the West will cause it to be blindsided by the colossus from the East.