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The Hunt For Russian Aggression

The report that two Russian attack subs appeared off the eastern seaboard in international waters has been an occasion for all kinds of speculation. While the subs’ appearance is remarkable mostly for how rare and unusual it is for the Russian navy to send its best vessels so far out to sea, thus underscoring how […]

The report that two Russian attack subs appeared off the eastern seaboard in international waters has been an occasion for all kinds of speculation. While the subs’ appearance is remarkable mostly for how rare and unusual it is for the Russian navy to send its best vessels so far out to sea, thus underscoring how relatively non-threatening Russian conventional forces are to U.S. security and how few Russian provocations of any kind there have been for decades, it has prompted some predictable yelping. David Satter writes:

They are in international waters and have not taken any provocative actions. Nonetheless, they convey a message. In the wake of President Obama’s visit to Moscow and Vice President Biden’s prediction that Russia’s weakness will produce conciliatory behavior, the submarines demonstrate that the Kremlin has no intention of changing its aggressive stance toward the U.S. [bold mine-DL]

Russia does not have an “aggressive stance toward the U.S.” I’m not sure what one can call this except delusional. Our government arms and trains the military of a neighboring state, which then uses its army to escalate a war with Russia and kill Russian soldiers, and it is Russia that has an “aggressive stance.” Our government bombards a nominal Russian ally for 78 days without just cause, but it is Russia that is the aggressive one. We try to bring every former satellite and province into our anti-Russian military alliance, and it is Russia that is the aggressor. When Russia has the gall to protest against these provocations and aggressive moves, or even dares to retaliate against attacks on its soldiers and the populations under their protection, it is Russia that must be acting aggressively. The most frustrating thing about these lies is that they are so transparent and incredible, but they are nonetheless widely accepted and believed.

It is true that Biden’s prediction was wrong, in no small part because Moscow was bound to become unyielding and uncooperative because of Biden’s calculated insults to Russia during and after his visit to Ukraine and Georgia. If the Russians are cooling noticeably towards the new administration, it is because that administration has been operating at both “the level of dissimulation and the level of reality.”

P.S. Scoblete offers one of the few sensible comments on this story:

Either way, this should serve as a good reminder that it is jarring when a not-quite-friendly nation brings military power right up to your borders. Food for thought.

Quite. Now imagine how our political class would react if Russia had made security guarantees to multiple neighboring states and set about arming and training their militaries to “defend” against U.S. “revisionism” and “aggression.”

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