Truthdig: Russia Calls NATO’s Bluff

[marmar]

Russia Calls NATO’s Bluff

Posted on Sep 2, 2008
By William Pfaff

When a tool is used for the wrong purpose, it may break. NATO has now been broken because it was used by the United States and the European NATO members as a tool for expanding Western power into the Russian “near abroad,” and after that, to make an inexplicably rash and dangerous effort to break into and split off portions of the Russian empire as it existed in the 19th century—long before the Soviet Union existed.

This is dangerous, because Russia had to be expected to react, and violently so, to an intrusion into the territorial integrity of the historical Russia. Furthermore, with its assurances of eventual membership, NATO gave implied guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia that it did not intend to honor, or could not honor except at the risk of a war it had no intention of fighting. The outcome of the Georgian affair provides the proof. NATO has been conducting this policy toward Russia on the assumption that Russia is too intimidated by Western military power to resist. Now it has done so, in Georgia. The bluff has been called. The sham of the NATO guarantee has collapsed. Nobody in the West seems willing to admit it.

The Polish and Baltic state governments, the American neoconservatives and acolytes of a “New American Century” of expanding global domination, Vice President Dick Cheney and his friends in the armaments, energy and government services industries, all act as if they do not understand what has happened.

All of these people, and all those in Western Europe who are now demanding immediate admission of Georgia and Ukraine into full NATO membership, are unwittingly doubling the stakes, enlarging their commitment to go to war if Mikheil Saakashvili should make another assault on South Ossetia or Abkhazia in order to re-annex them to Georgia and if Russia again “overreacted.”

Of course, they don’t mean it, or even understand what they are doing. Or most of them don’t; there may be some in Washington today who believe a short and sharp little pre-emptive nuclear attack to disarm Russia might be just the thing, before Russia becomes any stronger. But I don’t think there are many people in NATO Europe, or in the United States, prepared to give a nuclear guarantee to Georgian irredentism, or to an attempt to split Ukraine, or intensify its internal divisions. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080902_russia_calls_natos_bluff/?ln

[Danieljay]

1. Don't worry, Sarah Palin is so close, she knows exactly how to handle them. n/t

[bemildred]

2. Doubling down and chasing the pot is very Bushite.

Been doing that since he got in office and started fucking up. If he still has any money on the table, he will throw it in there and hope for that inside straight.

[ixion]

3. those who belive that:

"a short and sharp little pre-emptive nuclear attack to disarm Russia might be just the thing", are pathologically insane, IMO.

Such an attach would be the start of WWIII, and the end of the world as we know it.

[yurbud]

4. I met a Siberian in Alaska in 1989. One. He had travelled from Siberia to Moscow to Paris to...

New York to Anchorage to Kodiak to report on the oil spill.


Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I doubt that there's a lot of direct contact between Alaska & Russia.

[Diclotican]

5. marmar

marmar

Are there SOMEONE who really believe they could use nuclear weapon against Russia, and believe that they could do it, without the russians do something to "pay back"?.. Even if they was blowing up Moscow, they could not kill the russian army that way.. And I would guess, that if the current regime in Kremlin was killed, it would be many more behind them, who would be more aggressive, and maybe even afraid for what come.. And then when they was on their hight of their fear, they would attack West, and more to the point USA with everything they could possible send away.. And not just the missiles, but every airworthy aircraft....

The architects behind "the New american Century" are no less than like the nazi st of past. They to believed Russia to be a weak weak country, who they could just push down and destroy.. They got it horrible wrong.. To se the NEO-CONS speak when it come to Russia, are like the ghost of the past are coming and telling their old histories again.. To listen to the neo-cons ideologies, and to read little on the now defunct wwww.pnac.org are like read the speeches, and the "moral ground" for what the nazis was doing, not just before the war, but also inside the war who plagued the European continent for 6 year, killed more than 50.000.000 people and destroyed most of Europe in the process.. Now the same maniacs want to go after Russia, who HAVE nuclear weapon, and would use it, if attached, or believed to be under attack.... they must really be insane if they believe they could possible use nuclear weapon against Russia, and survive to tell the story afer..

What THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA have to do, is to arrest this madmen and woman who are thinking this thing, and to prosecute them to the full existence of the law... They should never manage to come out again, if they really believe they could go to war with Russia, and the Russians would not do something to stop them.. The Russian have maybe not had the luxury to build new rockets to their nuclear weapon after 1990. BUT they still have them, and they do have enough weapons to stop US in their tracks for many, many year... And if US was to send Nuclear weapon in Europe, or in former soviet union parts, it would be tricky or impossible to tell the europeans that this was to the best.. We know the Russian bear better than the americans.. And we know what can happened if the russians are pissed off enough.. Specially when they want to go to war against Russia... Russians have maybe not that modern armory anymore.. But they are still a force to reckon with. And with the right leadership, they have beaten off worse enemies than the US..

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[oldskool]

6. Obama and Biden support this

this crap.They just lost my vote.