Baiting the Bear
Joe Biden is in Kiev. He has again pledged Washington’s support for NATO expansion to include the Ukraine. Why adding a nation to an already meaningless alliance that will only serve to anger Russia and increase the risk of war is being pursued at all is a mystery to me. Will the US be forced to go to war to protect the territorial integrity of the Ukraine? What conceivable American national interest is there? Nevertheless, merrily we roll along.
Obama has proven that he is the master of high minded rhetoric but he has essentially continued the interventionist policies of his predecessor, some of which go back to Bill Clinton’s Balkan Adventures. What he needs to do is empower a “red team” that will start at zero and challenge every foreign policy assumption. There is very little in US foreign and security policy that makes sense any more but there are huge and well-paid constituencies that exist to support the status quo – they must be challenged. Obama has been conceding the ground to all of those groups without any debate and with seemingly little resistance. A US security guarantee for a wealthier and more populous Europe is idiotic and the very raison d’etre for the continued existence of the NATO alliance should be questioned. US presence in Iraq as a police force should also be challenged while AfPak might be the last great imperial war that Washington can but lose. Al-Qaeda, in all probability, can no longer attack the US and the counter-terrorism policy should be re-examined and tailored to meet the actual threat. Apart from anything else, as the US economy continues to contract and might eventually implode, retrenchment would seem to be the smart thing to do.
What are chances Obama’s building a carrot to entice Russia to pretend to go along with the global warming scheme?
After sabre-rattling, we stab NATO in the back, for Russia’s confirmation of the US environment-deception.
According to the US government, the average temperature in Kansas is 54.25, and the average temperature is Oklahoma is 59.54.
Unless we get China, and India, and Russia to cripple their economies, in about 500 years the weather in Kansas will be similar to what was in Oklahoma. That gives kansans only 500 years to move to Nebraska, or face total extinction.
(Additional consipracy theory, Obama wants his own semi-private armies, and would sell anybody down the river for additional control. Maybe look for him to say, “Look, I’ll trade you NATO, and World Currency, for your tacit approval of the weather-control deal, and the freedom to move my little armies about the globe.”)
So much for the new breakthrough in U.S.-Russian affairs. The Russians actually take Biden seriously and will see this as another example of U.S. double talk.
We actually saw already enough, so Biden’t visit won’t sploil much. Obama is just a muppet anyway.
The US empire frames the expansion of NATO in terms of ensuring independence of ex-Soviet bloc nations from the Red Monster. However these nations merely become imperial bases and eventually western puppets. It’s not about independence but a different form of dependence.
Boy I dunno. I think this question might be a challenge to a conservative over-reaction to the messes our other interventions in the world have gotten us into:
A.) The locus of the last two great world cataclysms *has* been in Eurasia, the occupants thereof being unable to contain and limit same.
B.) Despite very much trying the U.S. was utterly unable to stay out of such cataclysms.
C.) The proximate cause for the start of those cataclysms *was* territorial instability/aggrandizement.
D.) Looking down the pike the major threat to the continued present stability and peace of Eurasia would indeed seem to be territorial instability/aggrandizement, from Russia no less. (Which, concededly and in the main has acted responsibly in this respect since its recent inception, although one does have to consider Chechnya and Georgia, and that Russia has made ominous claims of interest to chunks of places in the Ukraine and etc., and also consider Russia’s expansionist past and that modern Russia is still young and one never knows its possible revanchist future.)
E.) All NATO really does is contained in its core mutual defense obligations saying an unprovoked attack on one is an attack on all, and therefore to a great extent the only reason anyone else could object is if they harbor some possible aggressive territorial intentions on one of NATO’s members.
F.) If there’s any time to try to dissuade a potential territorial aggressor from thinking of aggressing it’s before they get so strong and set on its course that doing it then means a terrible war. (Cf. 1938, Czechoslovakia.)
I think Giraldi’s idea of “red-teaming” the expansion of NATO (and indeed even the continuation of the U.S. staying in NATO at all) is a great idea, being great because it acknowledges the complexities of the situation. I’d just hate to see some knee-jerk “conservative” reaction (understandable as it may be given recent history) against what might be smart.
Sort of like … not wanting to be the proverbial cat who, having once sat on a hot stove (such as Middle East recently or even Vietnam), makes the stupid decision to never sit on any stove again no matter how nice and warm and wise that may be.
And one thing I’d like to see explored as an alternative to the expansion of NATO or at least as an informative bit of information is simply asking Russia to declare its respect for the territorial integrity of its neighbors. After all if it refused same, what exactly would that mean?
Cheers,
Don’t forget Phil, that the majority of Ukrainians don’t want to join NATO: 59% were against last year, and I don’t think those numbers have changed.
So we want to extend our military protection to a country that is a major liability in case of trouble, whose membership in NATO will really tick off the Russians, and whose citizens don’t want to join.
Biden is now in Tbilisi, where he has told the Georgians that the US does not recognize any Russian sphere of influence. Apparently it is okay for Washington to have a sphere of influence that encompasses the entire world but the Russians cannot even aspire to having “friendlies” on their borders. Tough luck, Ivan. Hard to believe that Biden is actually speaking for the administration as good relations with Russia are far far more important than looking stalwart in the Ukraine and Georgia.
As idiotic as it seems, I think the administration actually believes that we have no sphere of interest in say, the Latin America. They see themselves, at least rhetorically, beyond sphere of interest politics. The Russians may or may not understand that this kind of talk is not serious. Let’s hope they have a sense of humor.
Meanwhile Hillary is floating a joint security pact covering all the gulf states, guaranteed by the US! No one asks the pertinent question. If the continued flow of oil from the gulf is vital to the world, why doesn’t the UN or NATO + Japan, or some other consortium of stakeholders, guarantee the gulf’s security?
Thom Meehan wrote:
“As idiotic as it seems, I think the administration actually believes that we have no sphere of interest in say, the Latin America….”
You’re too kind Thom, their pretentions aren’t limited to believing we have no spheres of interest anywhere. I think their sort believe that our sphere of interest is *everywhere.*
Cheers,
So the democrats have as many hypocrites as the republicans. I think that’s old news. At least to some.
Daddysteve, I must disagree. Republicans harbor more hypocrites than Democrats. In order to be a hypocrite you must first pretend to have virtues. What can you accuse Barney Frank of, that Isn’t already on his resume, so to speak?
Capacity of Anglo-American Nazis to overestimate their superiority is far greater than of Mr. Hitler’s boys.
Russians and Slavic people with pride know very well West’s ambitions to enslave Humanity and dominate Mother Earth.
Touche