NP: NATO expansion (was: putin)

[alice malice]

see NY Times for

It Pays to Be Putin’s Friend

By STEVEN LEE MYERS, JO BECKER and JIM YARDLEYSEPT. 27, 2014


Articles in this series are examining how President Vladimir V.
Putin’s system of
personalized state-sponsored capitalism allows him to wield power at
home and abroad.

On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Thomas Eckhardt
<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> Am 26.09.2014 23:29, schrieb alice malice:>
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-west-united-states-past-future-conflict/380533/
>
> A sensible and balanced article, well worth reading:
>
> '(...) in modern history, no U.S. administration has proved more inept at
> dealing with Russia. This ineptitude, combined with the relative weakness of
> Russia’s conventional armed forces, a still-lethal nuclear arsenal, a
> military doctrine that foresees the use of battlefield nuclear weapons to
> de-escalate conflicts, to say nothing of a wounded psyche, make this a
> perilous moment in history. We are being marched off to a new war—a cold one
> for now—with no idea of what the outcome will be. We need to demand of the
> Obama administration: “Tell us how this ends.”'
>
>
> Also of interest (although the author of the piece does let the EU and
> Germany off the hook far too lightly in my view and I do certainly not agree
> with all of his conclusions):
>
> http://www.salon.com/2014/09/09/a_steady_flow_of_stupidity_reality_in_ukraine_and_obama_and_the_new_york_times_bizarro_parallel_universe/
>
> "The reality composed over the past six months opens onto a new era of
> miserable animosity in our relations with Russia. Pointless, fruitless,
> expensive, diminishing us and ennobling no one."
>
> and
>
> "Putin’s record on other matters is beside the point; if you bought into
> these past months of juvenile ad hominem smear, you had better study up on
> the powers of propaganda and psychological manipulation and think of
> yourself as a victim."
>
> Yep.
>
>
> Our politicians and media are acting like they're suffering from amnesia.
> All of this was predicted. As mentioned in the article in "The Atlantic",
> George Kennan, one of the architects of U.S. Cold War policy towards the
> Soviet Union, and not a foreign policy dove by any stretch of the lexicon,
> saw it coming in 1998 and didn't like it one bit:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html
>
> This is highly recommended reading, despite coming from the unsufferable
> Thomas Friedman.
>
>
> Here is a cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
> from February 2008:
>
> NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA'S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES
>
> "Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in
> Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability
> in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to
> undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable
> and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security
> interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the
> strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the
> ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split,
> involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would
> have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have
> to face. "
>
> https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
>
>
> The West (I'll continue to use this broad brush for the time being) knew
> this. It went ahead with destabilising Ukraine anyway, assisted by the
> well-meaning protestors on Maidan catered for by Nuland, McCain, Steinmeier
> and so on (in itself a breach of international law, namely that one
> shouldn't meddle in another nation's internal affairs) and the neo-Nazis who
> hijacked the movement and provided the muscle that was -- combined with the
> sniper attacks on peaceful protestors and police alike that were attributed
> to Yanukovich's forces but actually came from the headquarters of the
> Maidanists, and that no one wants to have seriously investigated except
> Russia, same as the massacre in Odessa or the downing of MH 17 -- necessary
> to oust democratically elected, if certainly corrupt, Yanukovich.
>
>
> The coup/revolution in Ukraine went against vital Russian interests and, of
> course, Russia reacted. Again: This was not only entirely predictable, it
> had been predicted. The Russians had told it to everyone who would listen.
>
>
> Now the West is shocked -- shocked, I say! -- that Russia took Crimea
> (without bloodshed and with the support of a huge majority of the
> population, I add) and that it quite probably lends a hand to the
> separatists in eastern Ukraine.
>
> Now thousands, if not ten thousands, of people are dead, the future of
> Ukraine is looking grimmer by the minute and nuclear war has once again
> become a possibility.
>
> Well done, I say.
>
> Thomas
>
> P.S. Obama listing the greatest threats to the world today as Ebola, Russia,
> ISIS in his U.N. speech does not bode well.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l