New Cold War?

Posted by fivedollargold 9 years, 7 months ago to Politics
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American policy toward Russia has been a disaster since the fall of the Soviet regime. Instead of embracing a former enemy, one with ten thousand nuclear warheads, multiple U.S. presidents fed into the Russians worst fear by expanding NATO, when it would have been prudent to let the former Warsaw Pact countries become buffer states. Our current president, the One, ratcheted up Russian distrust of the West, and specifically America, both in word and deed. A promise not to attach Libya in exchange for Russian help at the UN was broken with our planes bombing Khaddafi's forces into submission. The One then draws red lines for Russia's ally, Syria, because of alleged use of chemical weapons (remember Bush II?), which brings Russia into the mix in order to broker a deal. Of course, Syria remains a mess and the One is requesting millions in aid to rebels whose goal is to overthrow Assad, Russia's friend. This brings us to the Ukraine. Russia was willing to live with a Ukraine with one foot in the West and one foot pointed East, but the One said "no," Ukraine must choose a side. A Russia-friendly president was forced out and replaces with Western-centric leadership. The prospect of Ukraine joining NATO was too much for Putin. Had he not acted in Crimea and then in Eastern Ukraine, his own tenure as Russian leader would be jeopardized. The shooting down of an airliner by Russian surrogates was incredibly stupid, but not unprecedented. Remember KAL-007? $5Au lost a friend on that flight. The Soviets couldn't control actions everywhere in their empire then, and they can't do so now. Putin's response to the loss of life in the recent air disaster was tactless at best and cruel at worst. (He should have ordered his surrogates to cooperate fully with recovery operations.) So, now we have the One threatening terrible sanctions against Russia (terrible? really?) and recently making a bizarre speech insulting Russia much the same way he does Republicans. One would that his briefers would at least give him up to date facts. The One made several factual errors, some of which were probably correct a decade ago. For instance, the comment that Russia is losing population. Nope. They have been gaining, largely due to immigration. In fact, Russia is second in the world in receiving immigration after the U.S. Another gem from the One, "Russia doesn't make anything." They don't produce iPads for sure, but without their Soyuz capsule and rockets no Americans would be going to the International Space Station. Canada buys Russian heavy trucks. The One also stated that "men in Russia only live to age 60." Sorry. It's 65.5. Perhaps the One misread his teleprompter on that one. With the Ukrainian army having success recently in pushing back the rebels, does anyone seriously think that Putin will allow his surrogates to be driven back to Russia? It is only a matter of time before he provided heavier weapons, and most likely, mercenaries to aid his buddies. The main point $5Au is attempting to get across is that we live in a very dangerous time. The One is faced with a situation on Russia's border not all of his making, but he has made it far worse. Geography favors Russia. It is unlikely the One or our NATO allies will intervene directly in the Ukraine. However, if deadlier arms are sent to the Ukrainian government, the Russians will one-up us on their side. It is a situation the West cannot win and attempting to do so will only result in thousands of unnecessary deaths. The best we can hope to accomplish is to broker a deal to divide the Ukraine. The Ukrainians will balk at first, but faced with the prospect of the Russian bear completely decimating their country, they may just listen to reason.


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  • Posted by Bobhummel 9 years, 7 months ago
    $5Au , I would make a small point WRT former East block countries joining NATO following the fall of the Soviet Bear. Countries like Poland , The Czech Republic, the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania all ran from the clutches of their oppressor into arms of NATO of their own free will. Poland has made some spectacular, although not very public contributions to the cause of freedom though the deployment of their GROM side by side with our SEALs in some pretty nasty places.
    Secondly, the Russian Spetsnaz and other GRU units have never stopped doing nasty stuff to undermine the West. I recall the poisoning of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko back in 2004 and the fraud of Yanukovych's election. Then again in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in the UK in 2006. They seem to like the image of a slow tortured death for their opponents.
    Your analysis of the One is spot on. What ever does the most damage to American standing in the world or to the just cause of individual liberty and freedom, the One will be the championing that destructive position.
    The good news about exported Russian technology is that if the trucks are built like their fighter aircraft, they are total crap. They can still shoot down undefended airliners, but they will likely kill more of their own pilots than we could shoot down. Most of their technology is knock off ( stolen) copies of ours. Some of their SAMs are pretty good until you put some music ( jamming ) in the air. Still good against a defenseless
    , non maneuvering Boeing 777 at 35,000 feet.
    But I digress.
    Thanks for posting your analysis.
    Cheers
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    • Posted by 9 years, 7 months ago
      Oh yes. The Rooskies hardly have clean hands and the former Soviet satellites came begging for NATO admittance. In our own self-interest, we should have expanded relations with them, but not to the point of a military alliance. We undercut the Kremlin moderates and cleared a path for the ascendance of a Putin. Just a five dollar opinion.
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      • Posted by Bobhummel 9 years, 7 months ago
        I think it is safe to say that Putin did more undercutting of the moderates than we could ever conceive of. He was clear cutting a path to power. As head of the Sword and Shield of the communist party, the KGB, he knew where all the bodies were buried. He probably put some of them there. The man is ruthless. I was quite taken aback when W said that he believed he could work with Putin. As Ronaldus Magnus said to Mikhail, "doveryai no proveryai" Trust, but verify. We should not have done the former and we failed to do that later.
        Cheers.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 7 months ago
    Nice analysis of the foreign policy aspects, $5Au, but that's not the only Cold War anymore. The One has started a Cold War against US (pun intended).
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