The first four nations border Russia and the other two are not too far from its western border.
A report from a pro-government Georgian news source dispensed with public relations pabulum and described the development in less evasive terms:
"The Pentagon said on Friday it would build the military capabilities of Georgia and the Baltic states bordering Russia to ready them for operations in Afghanistan.
"The Pentagon announcement came on the same day U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sealed an agreement on a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty that they are to sign on April 8 in Prague.
"In notifications sent to Congress, the Pentagon said military assistance programs for Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia and Hungary were designed to build their capacities 'to conduct stability operations alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan,' Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
"Russia defeated Georgia's military bid to retake a pro-Moscow region from rebels in a five-day war that rekindled tension between the Kremlin and the West. Russia has since accused Washington of re-arming the Georgian 'war machine.'" [5]
The operative phrases are "build the military capabilities of Georgia and the Baltic states bordering Russia," "conduct stability operations alongside U.S. forces," and "re-arming the Georgian war machine."
The day before the Obama-Medvedev conversation Russian Information Agency Novosti reported on a poll conducted by the Levada Center independent polling and sociological research organization on the attitude of Russians toward the U.S. The results showed that only 9 per cent of those contacted viewed the U.S. as promoting "peace, democracy and order" in the world, while 73 per cent viewed Washington as "an aggressor seeking to establish control over all countries." [6]
A poll Medvedev, Lavrov and others in the Kremlin may want to pay some attention to if for no other reason that to pretend to represent the interests and the opinions of their people.
The survey also showed that a majority of Russian citizens saw no value in improving relations with the U.S. After all, why cultivate friendlier contacts with a nation, whose head of state last December boasted of it being "the world's sole military superpower" and which have a record $708 billion military budget next year, when it is an aggressive power bent on dominating your own country and every other one on the planet?
It would be ludicrous to attribute the above-documented sentiments, almost a full generation after the breakup of the Soviet Union and 25 years after Mikhail Gorbachev became its last leader, to the residual effects of "anti-American propaganda." (Though in the unlikely event Western news media notice the poll that is how they can be depended upon to construe its results and meaning.)
In fact any informed and impartial populace attending to world developments in the post-Cold War period would reach a similar conclusion, and no doubt outside of the "Euro-Atlantic family," as NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen while in a maudlin mood recently deemed it, comparable percentages could be expected worldwide if people truly spoke their minds.
Well-founded Russian suspicions of U.S. global geopolitical objectives can only be reinforced by several recent developments.
The Pentagon is dispatching a first contingent of 100 troops to run a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile battery in Poland next month, 35 miles from Russian territory.
On March 26 it was reported that the defense ministers of the pro-American governments of Latvia and Poland - both neighboring Russia - "called on NATO to locate more of the alliance's facilities in central and eastern Europe," with Polish defense chief Bogdan Klich adding, "We are aware that NATO institutions are unequally distributed between Western and Central Europe." [7] Central Europe is the current designation for what was formerly called Eastern Europe. A nation makes that geographical leap when it joins NATO.
While delivering a presentation on his bloc's new Strategic Concept in the Polish capital on March 12, NATO chief Rasmussen twice employed the Western mantra of "Europe whole, free and peace."
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