Following up on the last post now that I have a little more time, I think it’s important to stress that the close alliance with Georgia, the crazy desire to expand NATO into the Caucasus and points east and the general willingness to provoke Russia with unnecessary intrusions into what it considers its sphere of influence are products of a general, bipartisan consensus that all three major candidates evidently share (or at least feel compelled to embrace publicly).  This election is simply not a case where one candidate has a better or more sane policy towards Russia or better views concerning the pursuit of hegemony in Eurasia.  Over the long term, this shared view of U.S. policy towards Russia actually matters a great deal more than whether or not a candidate proposes to end the war in Iraq.  This is not an argument for McCain, who seems to loathe Russia at a visceral level in a way that the others do not, but a reminder that all candidates share the assumption that the U.S. should project power anywhere and everywhere and take on the risks and obligations of security guarantees to numerous states that have no connection to the national interest.