It's precisely that 'geometry and geography' which compelled Russia's Putin to respond that the U.S. is "filling Eastern Europe with new weapons," and to resort to tests of his country's new cruise missile and a new ballistic missile which is supposed to be capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads.
"If the U.S. nuclear potential extends across the European territory and threatens Russia, we will be obliged to take countermeasures,'' Putin told reporters in 2007. "Of course, we'll have to select new targets in Europe,'' he said.
Does this administration want a new cold war? They're angling for one. These brainless, unschooled megalomaniacs see a short term plus in their agenda to isolate Iran and those who would dare to trade with them. Putin threatened to withdraw from two arms control treaties if the U.S. went ahead with it's planned deployment of missiles to Poland and radar to the Czech Republic. The Russian military has, predictably, responded to the Bush regime's militarism by threatening to train their country's missiles on Poland. Gen Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, also warned that the Russia would pull out of a Cold War treaty restricting production of intermediate range missiles.
Now it appears that Putin is intent on moving forward with his threat to escalate Russia's defenses in response to the threat he perceives from the U.S. missile defense systems that Poland agreed to receive and deploy.
"By hosting these missiles, Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 per cent certain," said Gen Anatoly Nogovitsin, deputy head of Russia's armed forces on Friday.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's NATO envoy amplified Nogovitsin's warning, complaining that, "Of course the missile defense system will be deployed, not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia."
Zealously pressing their campaign to cripple the Iranians by restricting their opportunities for trade, the Bush administration is, in effect, encouraging and initiating restrictions on the trade that Russia depends on with their Iranian partners. From Russia's intention to build two nuclear plants in Iran to the multi-billion dollar oil deals they've struck with the Iranian regime, every adverse action by the U.S. threatens to restrict Russia's ability to trade independently, outside of the control of the West. That economic control (through sanctions, embargoes, or isolation from trade groups and associations) is the only significant lever the West has in any effort to influence Russia's behavior, outside of the inconceivable prospect of confronting them militarily.
Restricted to those two options, the limits of America's ability to influence nations like Russia through coercion or force are more than evident. The Iraq invasion, overthrow, and occupation is the clearest, most visible example of those limits.
Certainly, it's well in line with the aims of most careful adversaries of Russia to aggressively yank on whatever chain they've forged in their attempts to normalize their trade relationships. Nations have correctly drawn Russia into the fold of economic cooperation, like their G8 membership, and, correctly, pulled back from those relationships when Russia acts in a way which threatens those and other interests of theirs.
But, it's worthwhile to reflect on where our relationship with Russia would be if they managed to exhaust, and we managed to sever, those economic ties which have provided us leverage. What would we be left with to influence Russia's behavior if they were able to independently manage their economic needs outside of our influence and control?
To a large extent, the Russians seem prepared to call that bluff. It's not as if they expect any sort of direct military coercion by the West to be considered or attempted to counter their opportunistic invasion. And, they're quite comfortable in their justifications for invading which mirror Bush's own excuses for invading sovereign Iraq on a trumped-up threat and occupying the country behind the false pretext of 'spreading democracy.'
Russia and Georgia signed a ceasefire agreement today, but Russia is insisting that South Ossetia needs their 'protection' and are, predictably, resisting giving back the territory they've seized. What's to stop the Russians from just sitting there? Economic sanctions? Expel them from the international arenas of cooperation which enticed and enabled Russia to emerge from their Cold War defensiveness and laid the foundation for disarmament and other security agreements?
Maybe it will come to all of that, but, consider what we're left with if we fail to forge the necessary links of diplomacy and cooperation with those in the region and without. There is no sane military option when it comes to directly influencing Russian behavior, and, if we can't contain their military aggression through diplomacy or sanction, the demands of the West will likely be as disregarded and ignored as Russia's objections to Bush's occupation of Iraq were.
The only way to achieve and maintain the necessary diplomatic relationships to successfully influence Russia's behavior is for the U.S. to return to a level of moral authority it had when we first began to draw Russia in, and that Bush has squandered with his opportunistic militarism. The only way to regain that authority is to affirm the most basic element of the democracy we pretend to support and defend abroad; the integrity of sovereign borders.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
