I know how we can punish the Russians for defending themselves... We can break previous agreements with them and expand NATO up to their borders, then we can bomb and dismember their friends like Serbia. We can build pipelines going around Russia. We can reduce Russian influence by not giving citizenship or voting rights to Russian minorities in the Baltics. How about breaking international law and ignoring Russia by declearing independence for Kosovo? Then we can undermine manipulate elections through "supporting the democratic process" and stage colour coded revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia and turn their friends against them. Next step we could of course undermine democracy by pushing NATO on Ukraine even though 2/3 dont want it in Ukraine. Or how about arming and training the satelite state Georgia to attack Russia and slaughter Russians citizens in their sleep? After this is done we can let our free unbias western media air videos of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and other ridiculous comparisons instead of reporting the facts. Well, as this is what we are doing to Russia when they are our "friend", we seem to have run out ways to punish them. Or maybe we should keep following Brzezinski's strategy to break Russia into 3 smaller states so they can be contained? I really hate it when Russia doesnt follow our gameplan, it is obvious that they do not share our values of democracy, peace and freedom
- 1
- 2
A New Ice Age?
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
"If it comes down to Russia's security versus WTO membership, there's no question what Putin will choose," says Gaddy. "Even if the West were fully unified, it still would not be enough of a threat to deter them."
The U.N. has only magnified the ineffective response. At the Security Council's fourth emergency meeting, the body remained deadlocked. This is unsurprising, because as a permanent member, Russia holds the power to veto any measure before the council; it's nearly impossible to imagine Russia accepting terms that hamper its current strategy in Georgia. At the same time, France, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has assembled a proposal that would get the Russians to pull back, establish mediation and send peacekeepers. Few are optimistic.
"This is the first time in a long while that a permanent member [of the Security Council] has been involved in a situation the council is considering," says Shamala Kandiah, a research analyst for the independent nonprofit organization Security Council Report. "It raises the question of the council's effectiveness in such a situation."
Despite concerns over a new cold war, there's a key difference between the current situation and U.S.-Russian relations 25 or 30 years ago. In Georgia, Russia's invasion is purely strategic, an attempt to increase security along its border. It is not interested in exporting an ideology in the way that the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism. "Russia is staking its ownership regionally," says Steve Levine, author of the book "Putin's Labyrinth." "The U.S. is being challenged: 'Are you a superpower or not?'"
What is most striking is that the attempted check on Russian aggression is varied, unaligned and seemingly ineffective. The post-cold-war world has given way to yet another shift in power, one in which the U.S. doesn't wear the uniform of global policeman as it did in the 1990s. But has the era of global policing passed for good?
The U.S.'s announcement of missile deployment in Poland, west of Russia's border, looks more like a standoff than the triumph of economic interdependence and diplomacy that the advances of globalization once heralded. If that is true, then the peaceful decade of the 1990s, the talk of the end of history and the triumph of liberal ideals may be written off as the good old days. Instead, the realist conception of powerful states in competition for security may once again rear its head.
© 2008
- 1
- 2
Discuss