Russia mulling break with NATO--Watching the Former USSR

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26403580/
Medvedev: We Are Not Afraid of a New Cold War

The recognition of SO and Abkahazia seems to represent the shattering of the status quo post-USSR.... Worried the world is trembling on the verge of a big conflagration to nab these little countries...

Yup....what are your thoughts, H2O?

The cold war never really ended, it just splintered and now seems to be reconstituting itself.

You can bet the 2 candidates will respond to this announcement...

<perk> Looking forward to hearing contrasts in what they say!! I (head in sand) had imagined Russia wouldn't be able to reconstitute....Reagan would be sending troops... Interested in what Bush will say/do....bad time to be faced with this....changing administrations is a wobbly time... I imagine O and McC will be invited to high level briefings pretty soon to provide for seamless transition...

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/26/1292535.aspx
Pretty informative, involved blog on the situation.

The best news source I've found for international events/politics.
PS--Craven/Nick/whoever....I'm hating on this recent font...

http://www.eurasianet.org/

I prefer the old font.

To my mind, the "Cold War" was the 3rd World War,
in that the communists were trying to enslave the entire world
for ideological purposes. From the beginning, according to Marx,
communism was a system of world government.

As it stands now, Putin is a de facto Czar of Russia;
i.e., I do not expect that he 'd endeavor to re-introduce the unlimited degree
of slavery of body and of mind that communism contemplated
( best demonstrated in the Red Chinese during the Korean War, and in the North Koreans).
Some degree of Russian expansion of territory can be accomplished without
the old communist obsessive insistence upon enslaving the entire world.

I do not believe that in the foreseeable future, the Russians will plunge
into any great imperialism.


As an aside, Putin blew my mind a few years ago,
interviewed on 60 Minutes when he wished all American families
a very happy Thanksgiving, in the most beautiful American English I ever heard !
If I had run into him and had a conversation in the street,
it woud never have occurred to me that he had not been born here.

I thereafter remembered that he had been an officer in the KGB.





David

Smiling and thanks for your input, OmSig

I gotta say that when communism n the USSR went out of business on Christmas Day
of 1991, it was one of the 2 happiest moments in my life.
What a relief !





David

I think The Russians' actions are very predictable. I would liken Russia to a bear (coincidentally the president's surname means just this.) If you don't mess with it it's quite harmless; however, if you provoke it... I really don't know what the Georgian president was thinking when he gave the order to shell Tskhinvali into oblivion. He thought the Russians would just stand idly by and do nothing? I'm not saying the Russians are not to blame or anything. All I'm saying is that they're acting predictably. Of course they don't want a border towards NATO (whom they still consider somewhat of an enemy) anymore than say USA would want Russian military bases in Mexico.

I think Russia considers itself a great and powerful nation, but I don't think they have any particular desire to take over all Georgia, or any other of the former Soviet republics.

This sounds reasonable to me.




David

I disagree.Will post more when i get time.

W showed the way to Putin by invading Iraq. W also broke the terms of the Salt Treaty by building missile sites in Poland and testing missile shields to shoot down ballistic missiles. What's good for the goose is equally good for the gander.

Bushes have used CIA in the Iran Contra affair that destabilized Carter's Administration. When Reagan got into the White House the Americans were released by the Iranians.

The Bushes are behind the Georgian invasion to influence the Presidential Race.

Now, why the hell didn't I think of that?

Because you are smarter then that, and you dont have a paranoid mentality.

Well gee whiz, Roger, you should have. After they blew up the World Trade Center and and the New Orleans levees and all.

On a more serious note, however, I do think this fuss and bluster on the part of Russia is something that should not be taken lightly.

Bush has been busy creating Gustav, running around like a ninja, causing problems in Georgia....how he finds time to wreck the economy, I'll never know. An energetic guy.