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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russia and America: Stumbling to War |
| 2015-04-20 |
| h/t Instapundit AFTER THE Soviet Union collapsed, Richard Nixon observed that the United States had won the Cold War, but had not yet won the peace. Since then, three American presidents--representing both political parties--have not yet accomplished that task. On the contrary, peace seems increasingly out of reach as threats to U.S. security and prosperity multiply both at the systemic level, where dissatisfied major powers are increasingly challenging the international order, and at the state and substate level, where dissatisfied ethnic, tribal, religious and other groups are destabilizing key countries and even entire regions. Not to mention that once Soviet Union collapsed, USA embarked on a path of social/ideological experimentation---based on that I'd like to call Social Lysenkoism (by analogy with Social Darwinism). An experimentation which bids fair to change it from "City on the Hill" into an international facilitator of thuggery & buggery. Most dangerous are disagreements over the international system and the prerogatives of major powers in their immediate neighborhoods--disputes of the sort that have historically produced the greatest conflicts. And these are at the core of U.S. and Western tensions with Russia and, even more ominously, with China. At present, the most urgent challenge is the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. There, one can hear eerie echoes of the events a century ago that produced the catastrophe known as World War I. For the moment, the ambiguous, narrow and inconsistently interpreted Minsk II agreement is holding, and we can hope that it will lead to further agreements that prevent the return of a hot war. But the war that has already occurred and may continue reflected deep contradictions that America cannot resolve if it does not address them honestly and directly. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #4 the US will not go to war with Russia and Putin knows it. That's why he can fly his fighter jets all over EU airspace to Portugal even over the UK and back over the Nordic countries. The end of the Cold War was great. Russia had a 10-year-window of opportunity to build a functioning democracy. They had no living experience of how to do this but they tried. It would have been difficult for the US to get involved without seeming like it was trying to take over but perhaps it could have helped by proxy through Germany or Sweden. Sadly Russia had but one democratically elected president - Yeltsin - before the KGB strongman was installed. Putin could have been stopped in 1999. Putin cannot be stopped now and even if he is deposed he has installed the worst of the old Soviet system in a spy state run by the KGB which has - even worse - incorporated the Orthodox Church into the running of the country. Reinvigorating that close relationship that the pre-Stalin Czars used to have with the Patriarch. So what you have is a macho, chauvinistic, theocratic, self-confident and internationally aggressive dictatorship. and every time the US tries to intervene at the UN to get something done about Iran or North Korea or Sudan or Yemen or Syria or IS or any of the other problems there is Russia ready to back up China in blocking them. SO the US has to come to terms with the idea that in foreign policy it doesn't have the ability to act as a hegemon when faced with a China-Russia coalition. You can't fight them. They are militarily stronger. They are nuclear armed. Problem. India is being ignored as an important ally, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy with a free market. An important bulwark against rising Sino-Russian power and a big stop against the Islamofascist enemies in Pakistan, where the ISI sponsored the Taliban. America also has the internal analysis problem where it sees state-based opposition (china-russia) as more threatening than asymetric, global, ideological opposition (Islamofascism). In fact, Islamofascism is the bigger threat. And yet we don't act like it. Pakistan: dangerous enemy, got nukes. Treated as a "regional ally" Saudi Arabia: dangerous enemy. Treated as a "regional ally" India: great potential friend, been fighting Islamofascism longer than us - ignored China/Russia: annoying block at the UN - treated like a feared dangerous enemy |
| Posted by: anon1 2015-04-20 21:50 |
| #3 And the US is run by a DC-Wall Street mafia. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2015-04-20 13:03 |
| #2 Both Russia and China are presently run by criminal mafias who only think of filling their pockets...Putin just bragged of personally getty majority shares in oil exploration firms for next to nothing and Xi Jinping is systematically "suiciding" the communist old guard...falling off tall building, run over by traffic, falling off bridges, getting melanoma cancer...you name it, the oldies are DESERVEDLY getting it...It's the year of the long knives! |
| Posted by: Spanky Stalin7296 2015-04-20 12:44 |
| #1 But here's the problem: both countries are currently run by groups who base their identity on being the offended party. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2015-04-20 07:29 |