Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version appeared at Project Syndicate.
As Russian troops mass along the border with Ukraine, the White House is calibrating its response. President Joe Biden has warned that in the event of an invasion, the US and allies would make Russian President Vladimir Putin pay a heavy price. Likely measures would particularly include economic sanctions such as a cut-off from the SWIFT payments system and turning off the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Good. These warnings are not empty threats and it is possible that they will deter Putin.
Biden has also said that he would not send military personnel. Also, good, given that a threat to intervene militarily would be a bluff. Americans and Europeans are not in fact prepared to send troops to Ukraine. Even though the Russian invasion of a sovereign European country is a terrible thing, reminiscent of 1939, all perceive that Putin feels his country’s interests to be at stake in Ukraine more than Americans do.
In 2008, western leaders promised that Georgia and Ukraine could eventually join NATO. (President George W. Bush wanted immediate steps toward membership, while other NATO members agreed only “someday.”) But the most important principle of the alliance, Article V, reads “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Nobody was prepared to come to Georgia’s defense in 2008, nor to Ukraine’s defense in 2014 and subsequently. Why, then, promise accession to NATO? It simultaneously undermines western credibility and yet provokes Putin.
Perhaps an economist should not wade into these waters. But I want to offer a very simple point: America has not done a good job since the end of World War II in accurately signaling what military intervention it was prepared to undertake and sustain.
The fantasy is that intervention would be so effective and advance warnings would be so reliable that potential foes most of the time would know to back down without a shot being fired. (Even in such a sought-after equilibrium, it would be unsurprising if the US occasionally had to follow through on its threats in order to maintain credibility.) But the correlation between word and subsequent deed, which should be high, has been very low. One category of such low correlation is cases where American governments made declarations of resolve that they were ultimately unable to back up.
- Cases when the US staked its credibility on unachievable goals
Consider three conflicts, occasions when the US declared resolve but, it turned out, was unable to sustain intervention with ultimate success, whether due to eventual lack of public support or the inherent impossibility of accomplishing the task by military means. The three interventions were Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, Lebanon in the 1980s and Afghanistan in the 2000s.
The stories of the 14-year war in Vietnam [1961 to 1975] and the 20 -year war in Afghanistan [2001-2021] are too painfully familiar to require elaboration (as is the continuing engagement in Iraq). In each case, some said that the United States should have had the perseverance to see the job through. But the length and cost of those engagements and — after western forces finally withdrew — the speedy and complete collapse of the governments that they had been propping up in Saigon and Kabul, respectively, are evidence enough: prolonging the deployments even longer would have been unlikely to produce better outcomes.
The point is that US goals would have suffered less of a setback if the military engagement had been discontinued at an early stage or if declarations of resolve had never been made in the first place. Typically, there comes a stage when large segments of the public begin to become disenchanted with war. Even the leaders have doubts, not to mention entangled allies. The response of the hawkish faction is to double down, arguing that with so much already invested, the credibility of America will be lost if the superpower is seen to “cut and run.”
In 1969, French President Charles de Gaulle asked Henry Kissinger why the US did not just withdraw from Vietnam. The American National Security Advisor replied, “A sudden withdrawal might give us a credibility problem,” for example, in the Mideast [p.604]. But America lost far more credibility when, after much further expenditure of blood and treasure, the troops were ultimately withdrawn anyway, without having accomplished the declared mission.
The hawks seem to think that they are the only ones who appreciate the long-term importance of making US threats believable. If they were to think a few steps ahead, they would realize that the loss of credibility might become much worse in the future than under a quieter disengagement at an early stage.
On October 23, 1983, 242 US service members (mostly Marines) were killed by a terrorist suicide bombing of their Beirut barracks. The US responded by evacuating its remaining troops in February 1984, along with other allied members of the Multinational Force — British, Italians, and French. (The latter had also been bombed, losing 58 paratroopers.)
Subsequently, some have argued that it was a mistake to withdraw, because Osama bin Laden concluded from the debacle that the US was a “paper tiger.” But these critics drew the wrong lesson. The right lesson is that President Ronald Reagan should have quietly ended the Marines’ presence before October 1983. It had become clear that they did not have a clear mission (their original missions, first, to facilitate the withdrawal of PLO officials and then to stabilize Lebanon, had become moot) and that Americans in Lebanon were terrorist targets.
Instead, the President treated the need for the Marines’ presence as an issue of American credibility. Even after the bombing, he repeated vows to keep the forces in Lebanon. (“We must be more determined than ever” not to be pushed out.) This made the blow to US credibility that much worse, when Reagan withdrew the troops four months later.
The argument — to match early signals with ultimate preparedness to follow through — could be misinterpreted as motivated by isolationist or pacifist tendencies. Indeed, one could probably make a good case that there is an historical tendency to over-estimate the efficacy of military force. But the case being made here is a different one: whatever the willingness to use force, the warnings should correspond to it. Leaders should generally seek neither to threaten more than the country is prepared to deliver, nor less.
- When the US neglected to signal readiness to intervene
The flip side of making threats that can’t be carried out, is to carry out threats that were never made. Sometimes the US has turned out to be prepared ex post to intervene militarily, and successfully, but had neglected to signal that ex ante to its potential opponent, which might have avoided the war altogether. Two examples are particularly prominent.
In a speech on January 12, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson defined America’s defense perimeter in Asia without including Korea. Shortly thereafter on January 19, the Congress rejected a $60 million aid bill for South Korea. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. The US led a United Nations Command which ultimately restored the original dividing line between North and South, but only after three years of bitter fighting, with an estimated 300,000 casualties on the UN side (and, on the other side, 520,000 North Koreans and 900,000 Chinese). Plus, countless civilians. One cannot know if North Korean leader Kim Il Sung would have attacked the South regardless. But surely the US government’s failure to think through in advance the price it was willing to pay, and to send a consistent signal, was a very serious error.
A second example when the US turned out to be prepared ex post to intervene, but had neglected to signal that position at a time when it might have deterred aggression, was Iraq’s August 2, 1990, invasion and attempted annexation of Kuwait. It seems unlikely that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would have embarked on that disastrous adventure if he had known how the US would respond.
But one can see how he might have gotten the prediction wrong. Earlier, when Saddam had invaded Iran (1980-88), the Reagan Administration had turned a blind eye. Worse, it may have covertly helped Iraq early in the war, including by supplying intelligence. Then, on July 25, 1990, just a few days before the invasion of Kuwait, with Iraqi forces already massing on the border, the US sent signals that were interpreted, understandably, as indicating that it would not respond militarily. The US ambassador to Iraq conveyed directly to Saddam that the US had no opinion about a border disagreement between Iraq and Kuwait. On the same day, another State Department official confirmed in a congressional hearing that the US had “no legal obligation to come to the defense of Kuwait in the event of an invasion.”
- When signals matched intervention
To be sure, there are cases where the US signaled intention to intervene, and then duly prevailed. Two examples. First, on August 5, 1990, after Saddam Hussein had indeed invaded Kuwait, George H.W. Bush famously declared, “This will not stand.” By February 28, 1991, a 35-nation coalition of forces led by the US, had made good on Bush’s pledge.
Second, on January 16, 1999, President Bill Clinton warned Slobodan Milošević the leader of what was left of Yugoslavia, to withdraw Serbian security forces from Kosovo. Subsequently, a NATO bombing campaign, between March and June 1999, ended with an agreement by the Serbs to withdraw their troops from Kosovo. The Serbian people voted Milošević out of office the following year.
No doubt the success of these two military missions owed much to the achievability of the goal, pushing a country’s troops out of particular territory, as compared to the infinitely more difficult goal of using armed force to convert a foreign country into a peaceful democracy. But the episodes are useful reminders that a high correlation between word and deed is possible. In each case, matching prior warning with ultimate carry-through accomplished the immediate goal, while also building credibility for the longer term.
The hypothesized benefits of being unpredictable might apply for a small state or asymmetric actor fighting a more powerful global order, but it is not generally good advice for a hegemon or its allies. After all, Richard Nixon [p.164] failed to make the “madman” theory, as it is called, work for him in Vietnam. The bottom line: match signals to actions when possible. At least, raise the correlation between the two.
This post written by Jeffrey Frankel.
Well thought out and articulated. One from the history books:
‘In 1969, French President Charles de Gaulle asked Henry Kissinger why the US did not just withdraw from Vietnam.’
Nixon in 1968 ran on “Peace with Honor” which of course was very dishonest. Worse than that – LBJ was try to negotiate a withdraw in 1968 but there was a problem in the State Department. Certain Republican members knowing peace would mean HHH would win the election undermined LBJ’s efforts for obvious political reasons. LBJ considers these acts by Nixon and his cronies to be treason.
Even still, North Vietnam offered Nixon a peace deal in 1969 that Nixon turned out. Now the deal was eventually accepted four long years later.
Nixon in 1968 ran on “Peace with Honor”
I had a bumper sticker back then that read “Impeachment with Honor.”
Why not drop a CBDC dollar-denominated basic income on the people in oppressed countries and beam in free uncensored internet so they can talk amongst themselves without government censorship? Because that is seen as too dangerous even in the US, to the powers that be?
Could you please stop this trolling?
The opening of the Lawrence Korb discussion:
‘Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster recently marked the 34th anniversary of the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Their remarks may have comforted the families and honored the sacrifice of the 242 American service members—222 of whom were Marines—who were killed. But both officials presented such a distorted version of the events of that horrible day that, if not corrected, they will cause more harm than good to our national security. According to Pence and McMaster, the attack on the Marine (and French) barracks was an early version of the attacks of 9/11. In their view, terrorist bombers, aided and abetted by Iran, committed mass murder and inspired Osama bin Laden by attacking U.S. and allied military forces that were simply in Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. Moreover, the attack demonstrates that their boss, President Trump, was right not to certify the nuclear deal with Iran.’
Read the entire discussion as Pence and McMaster certainly did draw the wrong lesson. Of course their boss (Trump) hired some of the worst advisors on just about everything.
Professor Frankel is too modest in suggesting that, as an economist, he should stay out of the discussion of international relations. Our country. Our government. Our responsibility.
On one point, I think Frankel is too generous, whether says:
“The hawks seem to think that they are the only ones who appreciate the long-term importance of making US threats believable.”
It may simply be that the hawks lay claim to that appreciation, without any particular pricipled belief. Policy entrepreneurs, as Krugman calls them, can be a sorry lot. Hawks make their living advocating war. Everything else serves that purpose. Belief follows interest, I suspect.
Excellent piece.
“Hawks make their living advocating war.”
Take Billy Boy Kristol for example. He claimed before Bush43 launched that costly disaster in 2003 that the cost of invading Iraq would be a mere 0.2% of GDP. And I scoff at Glassman/Hassett for DOW 36000.
Billy Boy was later asked about whether Congress would support Obama if he wanted to wage war over the Russian take over of Crimea. Billy Boy proudly declared “Republicans will do the right thing and support a war”. Like this chicken hawk has ever served on the battle field.
A more pertinent question is whether the US has the ability to successfully enforce its will at all against Russia, China, and Iran, particularly if the three were to act in concert. Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 analyst, explores the ramifications.They do not look at all favorable for the US, though the foreign policy establishment and its shills in the media will continue to cheer for “our side” no questions asked. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/13/never-more-unsettling-strategic-landscape/
Andrew Bacevich, a former army colonel and professor emeritus at Boston College, explores the widespread delusions about the military’s operational effectiveness, delusions that the military and the political class seem to be operating under.
https://tomdispatch.com/how-awesome-is-awesome/
After the US left Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires, with its tail between its legs, one would think that it would be time for self-reflection not aggressive posturing, grandstanding, or kinetic action. “as Bacevich notes, “ a proposed Afghanistan War Commission now approved by Congress and awaiting President Biden’s signature could subject our military’s self-proclaimed reputation for awesomeness to critical scrutiny.”
Unfortunately, Biden is receiving intense pressure to show US resolve and restore its credibility after the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, so he may feel a need to act impetuously. Losing a war to one of the world’s poorest nations should make the military, industrial pause and think before baiting a nuclear power into war.
Now is not the time for US ultimatums.
‘The viscerally anti-Putin factions in U.S. and Kiev are furious: A U.S. Republican Senator, Roger Wicker has warned that in any stand-off over Ukraine, “I would not rule out military action. I think we start making a mistake when we take options off the table, so I would hope the president keeps that option on the table”. Asked what military action against Russia would comprise, Wicker said it could mean “that we stand off, with our ships in the Black Sea – and we rain destruction on Russian military capability”, adding that the U.S. also shouldn’t “rule out first-use nuclear action” against Russia.’
I never even heard of Wicker but this dude is beyond sick. Like Putin could not go after our ships. GEESH! This advice is Ted Cruz level insanity.
Kiev is a lot closer to Moscow than Havana to Washington.
The Cuban missile crisis arose because the US considered the Soviet missiles to be to close.
Yet the propagandists in the US media simply can’t understand why a Ukraine armed to the teeth should concern Russia. I mean, forgetting wars in Serbia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya, isn’t the US a peaceful nation? How could anyone possibly feel threatened by theUS and its satraps?
Russians still remember how US neoliberal policies took full advantage of the Soviet Union’s collapse and abhor their return.
By failing to understand Russia’s concerns, the Mendacity of the US media is on full display.
It sounds like you want Putin to annex Ukraine. You and ltr have apparently become Putin’s poodles.
pgl would have been perfectly happy with Soviet missiles in Cuba because it was perfectly obvious that Castro wasn’t going to invade the US…beyond stupid!!! Even more stupid than the mainstream media’s propaganda about Ukraine!
JohnH
December 26, 2021 at 3:08 pm
followed by this little child’s usual whining. Dude – your mommy is calling you.
“Yet the propagandists in the US media simply can’t understand why a Ukraine armed to the teeth should concern Russia.”
This is beyond STUPID even for you. Ukraine has no desire to march on Moscow. But Putin has every desire to annex Ukraine.
“Kiev is a lot closer to Moscow than Havana to Washington.”
You might have a point if we were arming nuclear missiles in Kiev. But we are not so this is just another one of your unbelievably dumb lines.
Why do both JohnH and pgl, who disagree so much, both spell the name of the capital city of Ukraine by its Russian spelling rather than its Ukrainian one, Kyiv, which is now used by most media?
James Galbraith: “ But beginning in 1957 the U.S. military did prepare plans for a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S.S.R., based on our growing lead in land-based missiles. And top military and intelligence leaders presented an assessment of those plans to President John F. Kennedy in July of 1961. At that time, some high Air Force and CIA leaders apparently believed that a window of outright ballistic missile superiority, perhaps sufficient for a successful first strike, would be open in late 1963….
“ [1961]—The U.S. was far ahead in the arms race. Yet the military continued to press for a rapid build-up of strategic missiles. Curtis LeMay had asked for at least 2400 Minutemen; Thomas Powers of the Strategic Air Command had asked for 10,000. All were to be unleashed in a single paroxysm of mass annihilation, know as SIOP, the Single Integrated Operating Plan.
Kennedy resisted strong pressures to test this advantage in October of 1962, as he might have had to do, had he agreed to launch bombing raids on the Cuban missile installations. Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs, published in 1970, tell of graphic fears expressed by Robert Kennedy to the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin at the peak of the crisis:
‘Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will… If the situation continues for much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American military could get out of control.’”
https://prospect.org/world/u.s.-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963/
The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. Yet the mainstream media acts as if the Cuban missile crisis never happened. They can’t imagine why Russia would vehemently oppose an arms buildup in Ukraine. And who knows how many in the military think that Ukraine offers the ideal launch pad for a preemptive strike?
“Yet the mainstream media acts as if the Cuban missile crisis never happened. They can’t imagine why Russia would vehemently oppose an arms buildup in Ukraine. And who knows how many in the military think that Ukraine offers the ideal launch pad for a preemptive strike?”
Sentence 1 here is a LIE. The other two sentences are a complete misrepresentation of what is happening in Ukraine. We are not going to put a nuclear arsenal aimed at Moscow in Ukraine. Your suggestion that we are is beyond irresponsible.
Andrew Bacevich, a foreign policy student and analyst of singular brilliance.
when i read ““History Advises Biden to Match Signals with Actions”
my second thought was maybe we should consider how lbj went from a “littler girl in a field of flowers with a mushroom cloud in the background” to 500000 combat troops in vietnam by nov 1965……
my first thought was neocons need to be shut out of the ukraine/taiwan discussion.
LBJ as VP never got the advice of Rusk and McNamara to JFK about being in Vietnam. But he did declare – if you are going to fight a war, why don’t you try to win it.
Of course he should have fired these two clowns in 1964 rather than waiting for 1968.
1964, candidate lbj was not president lbj in march 1965. he’d been president since nov 63.
it has been a long time since i read best and brightest, the democrat party ‘tough on communists’ version of cheney w bush neocons.
why do democrats get us in wars, and keep them up for too long when they should be “redeploying”?
Your last line sounds a lot like Goldwater’s claim that Democrats get us into wars and Republicans get us out. It was a lie then and certainly not operative now.
pgl
i don’t know that goldwater was original in that observation.
the line comes from citizens who grew up during the depression and observed ww ii korea, vietnam & clinton/obama new style of nitsche foreign policy. which is a lot like cheney/w bush and kristol……
I have never been sure whether this particular exchange is literally true or not, but it does express the uncomfortable reality that had existed since the late 1940s, that we try hard not to think much about.
When questioned by John Kennedy as to why France really needed a nuclear arsenal ( la force de frappe) De Gaulle replied, “Would you be willing to lose New York for Paris?”
Silence…
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v14/d30
May 31, 1961
Memorandum of Conversation
The President said that the question was how to make the Western position believed by Mr. Khrushchev. There is a danger that he might not believe in our firmness. The General himself had asked whether we would be ready to trade New York for Paris. If the General himself, who has worked together with the United States for so long, could question American firmness, Mr. Khrushchev can question it also. The problem then is how to convince him….
I love it how the right wing squirms over these issues. Senator Wicker goes onto Faux News to discus options on how to force the Russians out of Ukraine leaving a nuclear strike on the table. That was an interview with Neil Cavuto. So Tucker Carlson gets a Democratic Congress woman to condemn this idea on his show. Tucker? OK! And now the National Review goes off whining that Wicker was not advocating a nuclear strike after all:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-roger-wicker-didnt-call-for-launching-a-nuclear-strike-on-russian-forces/
Neocon confusion is precisely what this post advises against. But yea I get it – the National Review should never be taken seriously.
In 2008, western leaders promised that Georgia and Ukraine could eventually join NATO. (President George W. Bush wanted immediate steps toward membership, while other NATO members agreed only “someday.”) But the most important principle of the alliance, Article V, reads “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Nobody was prepared to come to Georgia’s defense in 2008…
— Jeffrey Frankel
[ Georgia was promised membership in NATO in April 2008. In August 2008, under cover of the opening of the Olympics, Georgia launched an unprovoked attack on Ossetia which borders Georgia and Russia. Ossetia was protected by Russian peacekeeping forces who were attacked in the Georgian onslaught. Russia responded to the Georgian attack and quickly turned back and defeated Georgian forces. The point however is that Georgia attacked Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers, and that should be made clear and remembered. ]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20gorbachev.html?ref=opinion
August 20, 2008
Russia Never Wanted a War
By MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
Moscow
THE acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?
Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.
The decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to now cease hostilities was the right move by a responsible leader. The Russian president acted calmly, confidently and firmly. Anyone who expected confusion in Moscow was disappointed.
The planners of this campaign clearly wanted to make sure that, whatever the outcome, Russia would be blamed for worsening the situation. The West then mounted a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way.
The news coverage has been far from fair and balanced, especially during the first days of the crisis. Tskhinvali was in smoking ruins and thousands of people were fleeing — before any Russian troops arrived. Yet Russia was already being accused of aggression; news reports were often an embarrassing recitation of the Georgian leader’s deceptive statements.
It is still not quite clear whether the West was aware of Mr. Saakashvili’s plans to invade South Ossetia, and this is a serious matter. What is clear is that Western assistance in training Georgian troops and shipping large supplies of arms had been pushing the region toward war rather than peace.
If this military misadventure was a surprise for the Georgian leader’s foreign patrons, so much the worse. It looks like a classic wag-the-dog story.
Mr. Saakashvili had been lavished with praise for being a staunch American ally and a real democrat — and for helping out in Iraq. Now America’s friend has wrought disorder, and all of us — the Europeans and, most important, the region’s innocent civilians — must pick up the pieces….
Mikhail Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union.
‘Mikhail Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union.’ Well that’s true. Which means we should not trust a word that he wrote. But of course Putin’s little poodle here tells us we must.
Gorbachev did some good things for the world at great personal risk to himself. You’re not very good at nuance or parsing things out are you?
So I guess you support the Russian invasion of Georgia. Dude – learn what the topic was!
PaGLiacci/Crazy Joe Davola, we missed you at the office. The person who takes every commenters’ words on this blog with a jump in logic only to be matched by fictional character Parry in The Fisher King . When are the good folks at Bellevue getting you back on your pills regimen??
nato ‘guarantees’ to ukraine/georgia are same as brit/french guarantees to poland in 1939.
declaring war don’t mean you will do respectable war….
us wrt russia/china is about same position as france and britai, with a lot more money laid out!
and nukes on all sides.
the ”strange’ war from sep 1939 to may 1940 is a period worthy of study… as is summer 1914.
Putin’s peacekeepers. How much is he paying you?
Never mind the fact that Ossetia was part of Georgia at the time. ltr left out a lot in her dishonest defense of Putin’s “peacekeepers”:
https://origins.osu.edu/article/clash-caucasus-georgia-russia-and-fate-south-ossetia?language_content_entity=en
so…..
breaking up yugoslavia is okay bc ….?
but georgia will never be broken up, because……
real politik!
How and why a nation was broken up does not seem to matter to you. I guess if Putin wanted to annex the Red States of the US – you would support this too!
putin and others is why we keep the 2d amendment……
Wow, your Chinese masters would be so proud. You’ve erased inconvenient Georgian history the way China erased the Tiananmen Square statue from Hong Kong.
Ossetia does not have a history as a sovereign state for most of modern history. It did not gain independence when Russia intervened there to serve Russian interests. The majority of U.N. members still recognize Ossetia as part of Georgia.
Just days ago, you lauded the war criminals in Ethiopia for raping and torturing to hang on to Tigray. Now you grind out a trite lie of omission to say Ossetia deserves to be separate from Georgia. It’s bad enough that you lick Xi’s boots on command. Now you’re licking Putin’s, as well.
It’s as if Lord Haw Haw has been reincarnated with a Chinese accent.
Thanks for pointing out how two faced ltr is being. I was going to do so – but you did this so perfectly. She has ZERO credibility here.
ltr,
Yikes!
What Georgia attacked was South Ossetia, widely recognized as being part of Georgia, but having established a separatist tepublic with Russian support. But there is a massive hypocrisy on that as North Ossetia is part of Russia who has definitely not let them join this independent South Ossetian republic they do support. Are you really unaware of this, ltr?
ltr has become Putin’s little robot so I doubt she has any awareness of incredibly dishonest she has become.
“As Russian troops mass along the border with Ukraine, the White House is calibrating its response. President Joe Biden has warned that in the event of an invasion, the US and allies would make Russian President Vladimir Putin pay a heavy price. Likely measures would particularly include economic sanctions such as a cut-off from the SWIFT payments system…”
Wait. What? Joe Biden can’t cut off Russia from the SWIFT payment system. SWIFT is governed by Belgian and EU law. Biden could attempt to jawbone the Europeans but Biden has made no credible threat to Putin that he would be able to accomplish it. Russia has been threatened before with SWIFT disconnection. It has built its own payments systems and also can use alternatives. Putin knows that Biden can’t shutdown SWIFT.
“…and turning off the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline. ”
Wait. What? Biden can’t turn off the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In July, Biden backed off from further sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in exchange for a weak agreement with Germany which the Biden Administration claims implies Germany will shut down Nord in the event of a Russia invasion. But the agreement doesn’t say that at all and Putin knows it. Germany would have to decide to shut down Nord and it hasn’t been willing to agree to do that.
“Good. These warnings are not empty threats and it is possible that they will deter Putin.”
Wait. What? Of course these are empty threats, since Biden can’t do either of them and has not signaled in any credible way that he has gotten assurances from the people who CAN carry out these threats that they WILL carry out these threats. Putin knows that.
Putin also knows that the US has an historically very weak President who is further hampered by significant cognitive problems. Biden forgets where he is, he forgets what he’s saying or is supposed to say, and he rambles like an inpatient in a memory facility. Putin sees that. Even when Biden had his faculties, he had an uncanny ability to be always wrong about just about every foreign policy issue that came up. When he was still all there mentally, Biden argued against taking out Bin Laden to Obama when they thought they had him because Biden said the US needed more evidence before violating Pakistan airspace. Biden was willing to risk Bin Laden getting away because he worried Pakistan might be angry. Fortunately Obama was much tougher than Biden and ordered the strike, taking out Bin Laden. You think Putin respects such a man as Biden or fears his empty threats?
If Trump were President, Putin would be behaving. Putin is not behaving because Biden is President. Biden should be going to Congress to prepare a robust sanctions program as the Trump Administration did in 2017, 2019, and 2020. Right as Trump was leaving office, on Jan 19, 2021 he imposed sanctions of the Russian vessel Fortuna, used by Gazprom to construct Nord as well as sanctions on KVT-RUS. But instead the Biden Administration has backed off on Trump policy of sanctions, preferring phony political agreements with Germany. Putin sees that.
Dude – I guess you are totally clueless that our European allies are coordinating with the US Administration. Now I get your hero (Trump) insulted our allies at every turn, played poodle for Putin, and was an incompetent spineless little wimp. But get a grip – Trump is no longer President. Thank God!
Turning off Nord or cutting Russia off from SWIFT are just rumors and suggestions from unnamed sources reported in the media. They are hardly credible threats at this point. Both would be very costly for Europe if carried out, especially for Germany. Neither Biden nor the Europeans have made clear what they will do or whether there is any agreement to do anything serious in the event of a Russian invasion. All Biden has done at this point is to bluster when the words on the teleprompter written for him tell him to bluster. For Jeff to say that Biden has made credible threats that Nord will be stopped or Russia cut off from Swift vastly overstates the reality.
Your rehashing your initial rant does not improve it. Call Kelly Anne Conway and demand better talking points.
“When he was still all there mentally, Biden argued against taking out Bin Laden to Obama when they thought they had him because Biden said the US needed more evidence before violating Pakistan airspace. Biden was willing to risk Bin Laden getting away because he worried Pakistan might be angry.”
That is a lie – and rather disgusting one even for you.
pg13,
You have to be the laziest and most ignorant commenter on this blog. You never cite sources; you never bother to look up any facts; you just hurl insults.
I think you play the troll just because you know very little and can’t back up anything you say. If you had bothered to read Obama’s memoir “A Promised Land,” you’d know that Obama himself recounted the debate and discussion around whether to strike against Bin Laden or not. The problem was that they could not be certain that Bin Laden was there. As Obama recounts it, most of his advisors favored the raid, while acknowledging the risks. Hillary barely favored it, 51-49, and she emphasized the problem of rupturing relations with Pakistan or even getting into a confrontation with the Pakistani military. That was a risk they were all worried about. As Obama recounted Biden’s advice: “Joe also weighed in against the raid, arguing the given the enormous consequences of failure, I should defer any decision until the intelligence community was more certain that Bin Laden was in the compound.”
Exactly as I said in my comment.
The problem with waiting of course is that Bin Laden had been moving around for years and waiting imposed the risk that he’d move again and they’d lose him. Obama made the correct decision and went ahead with the raid, something that Biden didn’t have the spine for.
Gee a lot of gibberish for a PG13 movie. I would have thought that meaningless rant would have been accessible only on the Dark Web.
“If Trump were President, Putin would be behaving.”
This is so backwards and incredibly funny (in a dumb way). Putin has his poodle (Trump) on his leash but THE RICK actually claims Putin answers to Trump? OK RICK – you won the award for the dumbest comment in 2021. Nominations are closed!
In what year that Trump was President did Russia begin a mass military buildup on the Ukrainian border?
@ Rick Stinker
You might find the date of these stories beneficial to your personal knowledge:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-buildup.html
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/06/exclusive-satellite-photos-detail-russian-military-buildup-crimea/157642/
https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/02/are-the-russians-coming-russias-military-buildup-near-ukraine/
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/royal-navy-destroyer-swarmed-by-17-russian-jets-in-black-sea/
Some interesting information. Why do I like this paragraph:
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., speaking at the GLOBSEC security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Saturday said “I’ve called for a multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea to show, when Russia aggressively is using military action, makes incursions into the West, [and] does not abide by its own commitments, in terms of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, [that] we need to respond military as well — not with kinetic military action, but with a very strong show of strength and resolve.”
Yea RonJohn is generally a MAGA hat wearer nutcase but even he had more resolve that President Donald ultimate wimp Trump.
There was never a buildup during the time that Trump was President that was anything like we have seen in 2021–a buildup that could lead to an invasion of Ukraine. Since 2014, the Russians have moved military equipment around, sometimes in and and sometimes out. The articles you link to show no 2021 type build up occurred during Trump’s presidency that would lead to an outright invasion.
Just to take one example, if you bothered to read the articles you posted, e.g., the NYT article, you’d see that they were reporting Ukrainian allegations of a build up but then quoted the U.S. view of the situation:
“A Defense Department official said the United States military had not seen a significant buildup of Russian military equipment on the Ukrainian border since the naval episode on Nov. 25, aside from a small number of defensive weapons that were moved in recent days.”
Rick Stinker says:
“Quoted the U.S. view of the situation”
Hey dumb$shit, you know donald trump and HIS Defense Dept were the ones being quoted, right?? Or can you even read calendar dates?? You cherry picked one paragraph from NYT. Do you think Ukraine officials, multiple of which were quoted in the article, know when their own nation is being encroached on?? Or did you get your Cracker Jacks prize degree from the Rudy Giuliani Community College of Foreign Policy?? This is the same trump led Defense Dept that had its elbow up its ass with Rudy Giuliani taking bribes acting as trump’s lead on Ukraine not long before hundreds of illiterate rednecks violently attacked our nation’s Capitol and attacked police, killing some of the Capitol police, while Mark Esper, Christopher C. Miller, “and Defense Dept friends” were at the salon having their nails buffed…….. Not sure if that’s a “Defense Dept” you want to be quoting. Just how DUMB are you Rick Stinker??
It is cool though that donald trump and trump’s Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, had enough testicles to defend a Church just across the street from the White House, that no one had thrown so much as a spit wad at that day. That’s the type of “cojones” Rick Stryker and the men of Rick Stryker’s family can respect:
https://images.app.goo.gl/xvCznVrBWgZsAg7P8
Rick also respects the little “show and tell” Bible trump swiped from his illiterate daughter he apparently has incestuous fantasies about.
These are Rick Stryker’s personal heroes in life. “Men” who walk around, telling Americans that Jesus Christ “has done nothing good for America”. And are only willing hold up or even touch a Bible when it pragmatically gets them from point A to point B or provides them with an easy buck to be fleeced from the illiterate and gullible. These are Rick Stryker’s personal heroes in life:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/gospel-donald-trump-jr/621122/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
And Rick says “Jesus be damned” if that interrupts any Republican’s golf tee off time.
Here’s a good picture (and others underneath) of the man Rick Stryker thinks should take the lead role in the U.S. State Dept on Ukraine. While taking bribes. This is Rick Stryker’s “go to guy” on Ukraine’s national defense:
https://images.app.goo.gl/DVdEuNfRMYVsiBNd9
You’d think Rick Stinker’s shining example of East Europe diplomacy and military expertise could at least afford good quality hair dye that doesn’t look like sewage drainage sliding down his face, but hey, when Rick Stinker says trump’s Ukraine moves are the most courageous, who are we to argue with Rick Stinker??
And he is withdrawing some of his troops. Do learn to keep up with the latest news.
Rick Stryker Biden didn’t oppose the mission to kill bin Laden because he was afraid Pakistan’s feelings would be hurt if we violated their airspace, although it is true that Pakistan had threatened to cutoff one of only two logistics pipelines into Kabul. [The second pipeline was classified and considered very high risk.] Biden’s principal reason for opposing the raid was that he was afraid the Pakistani military would alert bin Laden of the raid once Pakistan had picked up our helicopters entering Pakistani airspace. You might think Biden’s memory is weak, but it was good enough to recall what happened when Clinton launched a missile attack against bin Laden’s camp in Afghanistan. In case you forgot, the corrupt Pakistani intelligence services alerted bin Laden that missiles were on the way, which enabled him to escape. And don’t forget that we did lose one UH-60 bird that had to be destroyed on the ground.
What Putin fears most is not economic sanctions. What he fears most are significant battlefield losses, which is why the US and NATO have been providing the Ukrainian military with some fairly sophisticated weaponry. You never know what to expect when you start a war. To give you an idea of the relative complexity of a single battle simulation, a battalion-on-battalion simulation runs for 4 hours on a 2 GHz machine. A single brigade-on-brigade simulation runs for 60 hours on a 2 GHz machine. Now imagine what a division-on-division or corps-on-corps simulation. A lot can go wrong.
No, that’s false. See my answer to pg13 or read Obama’s memoir “A Promised Land.” Biden was worried that Bin Laden wasn’t there, not that he would be tipped off by the Pakistani military. Biden wanted to wait to get more certainty that Bin Laden was in the compound before launching the raid.
Rick Stryker Obama wasn’t the only person in the room. Biden was very worried about bin Laden being tipped off by Pakistani intelligence.
The Pakis were always not to be trusted. That we carried this off was a real tribute to American competence. Something that was missing from 2017 to 2020.
The reason Biden thought he might not be there was precisely because he was afraid bin Laden would get tipped off by Pak intel.
Your kind of slow on this, Rick. Looks like you are the one that is mentally challenged.
False. Other people in the room have given the same account as Obama did and are exactly consistent with the comment I made. Biden was not worried about Pakistani intelligence tipping off Bin Laden since the U.S. was keeping the operation secret from the Pakistani government. If you’d bother to read a little about this, you’d see that the U.S. intel that he was there in the first place wasn’t solid, only about 50-50 or so. That’s what everyone in the room was worried about, not that Bin Laden was actually there and would be tipped off.
Sorry, Rick, but you are wrong. Yes, US intel was working hard to keep the op secret, and succeeded. But there had been previous efforts to keep things secret that did not stay secret. Biden was in the minority, but his position was not ridiculous, although in the end bin Laden turned out to be there and did not get informed to get out. But this is not remotely the evidence you somehow think it is of some sort of mental incapacity or total incompetence on Biden’s part you think it is.
I note that you have in fact suggested rather strongly that he is seriously mentally incompetent. I guess this means you watch Sean Hannity a lot who almost every night shows strung-together tidbits of Biden stuttering, which he has done all his life. Yes, those strung-together bits sure make him look stupid. But if you think Biden is incapable of completing a coherent sentence or is completely out of it, you clearly have not actually listened to any of his speeches, such as say, oh, his inaugural speech. I have seen him stumble and even make embarrassing mistakes on occasion. But the vast majority of pretty much every speech I have seen him give has been largely thoughtful and well-informed, certainly far more so than any speech I have ever heard out of his predecessor, who has gone completely bonkers with his incessant Big Lie about the 2020 election.
And note that I have been and am critical of several decisions and actions Biden has taken, although I am not gong to bother listing them all here at this moment. But he has made far fewer bad ones, and seems far more knowledgeable, consistent, and thoughtful, not to mention honest, than Trump ever was.
Nice! You lie and when your lie is exposed, you yell liar liar pants on fire. I bet all the other kiddies are laughing at the fool in the sand box.
No, you lie pg13. You are lying about Biden now just as you lie about everything else. I provide quotes from Obama to demonstrate my point. You just hurl insults in return without citing any sources.
https://nypost.com/2021/12/25/10000-russian-troops-leaving-ukraine-border-region-after-drills/
Just as Rick thinks he understands how Putin thinks, Putin pulls the rug out from Rick’s feet. I guess Putin forgot to tell Rick that he is pulling a lot of his troops back from the border.
I want to offer a very simple point: America has not done a good job since the end of World War II in accurately signaling what military intervention it was prepared to undertake and sustain.
— Jeffrey Frankel
[ That might be because of the Constitution and War Powers Resolution of 1973, wherein the President needs agreement of Congress in entering treaties or going to war. Then too, there are certain United Nations agreements that the President might be obligated to or care to abide by. Considering American military interventions however, I have trouble thinking “accurate signaling” has been all that much of a problem. ]
You can also turn the credibility question around and ask what happens to Putin’s credibility if he does invade Ukraine and suffers heavy battlefield losses? Today’s Russian army is not your grandfather’s Soviet army. It’s a bit of a stretch to imagine Russian tanks galloping across Ukraine’s version of the Fulda Gap. A more likely outcome would be to advance a few miles and then get bogged down. It’s a truism of modern military science that advances in anti-armor are always a generation ahead of advances in armor. And why in God’s name would anyone want eastern Ukraine?
This is an excellent point. But of course JohnH has just told us that it is Ukraine that wants to invade Russia presumably to occupy Moscow. Yes – he is THAT STUPID!
Well, the Ukraine crisis may be over on this 30th anniversary of the breakup of the USSR. The Hill has just reported that thousands of Russian troops are withdrawing from the border on this anniversary.
As it is, the US and UK did not live up to the 1994 Budapest Accord they signed with Russia and Ukraine when the latter gave up its nuclear weapons. All were supposed to respect the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine, something conveniently forgotten about when those little green men took over Crimea and then Russia annexed it.
As for Iran, Biden has seriously blown it by not getting back into the JCPOA nuclear deal ASAP after he too office. Somehow got it into his head that he needed to make extra demands on Iran, and now Iran near having full nuclear capability and run by hardliners. Big boo boo on that one.
barkley
in the ukraine nuke weapons deal was “keeping nato” out of east europe.
how it did not get in to the budapest writing is a ‘clintons issue’
Sorry, Paddy, not remotely true.
After the breakup of the USSR 30 years ago, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world. It was a nuclear weapons superpower. This was a much bigger deal than where the borders of NATO were. Belarus and Kazakhstan also had some, but nowhere near the numbers Ukraine did. As it was there three separate Budapest Accords, all with basically the same wording and conditions, with all three of them signed by US, UK, and Russia, but with each of those others signing their own separate ones. You want to argue that Kazakhstan signing one of these should have been all about NATO?
None of the big three want to talk about this and so nobody does and barely anybody here even knows about these accords. Russia does not want to admit it violated the big one with Ukraine, a very serious violation. And neither the US nor UK wish to admit that they failed to stand up seriously for Ukraine when it counted. So, pretty much near dead silence about all that.
As for this stuff about how the US supposedly promised Russia not to let any eastern European nations into NATO, this is a lie that Russian leaders have spouted for a long time, with Putin in particular using it to justify his own outright violation of written agreements, most notably this very important, if largely forgotten, one to get all those nuclear weapons out of Ukraine.
The promise that was made by James Baker in Spring 1990 to the then USSR foreign minister, was connected to the coming unification of Germany. At that time not only did the Soviet Union exist, but so did the Warsaw Pace and the CMEA, even as the latter was in the process of falling apart. The idea that NATO might expand into Warsaw Pact nations like Poland was not remotely on the table. This was all cooked up later. What Baker promised was that no NATO troops would be stationed in the former East Germany where they might threaten — Poland. Funny thing is that the promise has been kept, although it has long since become unimportant.
It should also be noted that when Poland and the Baltic states joined NATO, it was after several years of them begging to do so, with the US holding off out of clear awareness this would annoy the Russians. I regularly read about how this expansion of NATO was just all some neocon plot, as if Poland and the rest were just poor innocent victims of all those evil US neocons, who, of course, have never had the remotest reason to fear any sort of aggression from peace-loving and agreement-following Russia.
BTW, in 2000 Russia itself was invited to join NATO, but it declined to do so, and that offer has not since been revived.
astonishing string of unrelated ideas, none can be verified.
us and russia signed on to guarantee ukraine borders to get the nukes out of their incompetent and dangerous hands who would have lost security.
it is not logical for any of the republics to have had nukes! very dangerous, very expensive very technical…..
as above putin will do what he wants and nato, usa, etc have no more competence than france over poland in 1939.
while biden is chided on a ukraine sideshow, the big picture is far above his understanding.
paddy,
I agree these facts are not all that widely known, but they do not look all that unrelated, certanly not to what you said, that th Budapest Accords were really all about NATO not moving east, which is just bs. I have made it clear why nobody talks about the Budapest Accords, too embarrassing all around, although plenty important.
You claim “it is not logical” of the republics to have had nukes. Why is that? I note Russia is “one of the republics, and it has nukes. Why should it have them and not Ukraine, who had over 2,000 of them, putting it on a semi-par with both Russia and US? Is it “logical for North Korea or Pakistan or India or China or Israel, or for that matter, UK and France to have nukes?
Here is the serious bottom lijne. Would Putin have dared to pull his little green men trick on Crimea if Uktaine were still stting on over 2,000 nuclear weapons. And as for technical expertise, the same people would have continued to oversee them as were before. They would have all suddenly become incompetent because Ukraine and Russia and Belarus and Kazakhstan were now all separate states?
I can document everything I put down here, but that would really be a waste of time. I suggest you try to disprove any of it. I am going to egomaniacal here, possibly annoying some people, but I am pretty certain I know more about the former Soviet Union and its successor states than anybody commenting on this blog, including its hosts and even its guest writers. You can check out my Wikipedia entry, paddy, if you think that I am just shooting my mouth off with that one. Do you know more, and if so, where and how did you learn it?
paddy,
To be even clearer, heck with Crimea, would Putin have dared to pull this troop buildup on the Ukraine border, which now looks to be partly pulled back, if Ukraine still had those 2,000 plus nuclear weapons? They would need nothing from NATO or anybody to keep him off.
“astonishing string of unrelated ideas, none can be verified.”
Thank you for this impressive example of projection.
Learn history, then come back, you sound very uneducated.
Hindsight is great, but not always available during dynamic events and shifting options. This account is a good example of that:
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union
The wild cards are changes within an adversary’s realm that may vitiate what were appropriate plans and actions as well as changes to the political environment within one’s own country. Perceptions are colored by both bias and information and both of those may be faulty. Policy dictates strategy and strategy dictates tactics. A policy of intervention dictates different strategies than a policy of non-intervention. And all policies are subject to change. Plus politicians just outright lie; take FDR’s reiterated policy of keeping Americans out of the European war while surreptitiously preparing the U.S. to get deeply involved.
https://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n6p19_Chamberlin.html
The U.S. might have remained neutral with regard to Europe and focused solely on Japan, but the world would look vastly different today if that had been the case. FDR violated Dr. Frankel’s 3rd point by following the 2nd point. I’m not so sure that was an incorrect approach. Deceit and deception are powerful weapons.
Good piece.
I went through a similar reflection on the Russian military build up near the Ukraine recently while reviewing my exposure to cyclical equities. Would the Bread & Circus rhetoric of the Biden regime and some Europeans lead to anything more than that? Is the Crimea region of the Ukraine worth go to war over? Biden and others were all hat and cattle. Perhaps it was a weak ploy to divert US citizens from domestic issues? Was Biden willing to risk significantly higher prices at the pump to get Russia to do his bidding? The answers all seemed to be ‘No’ so I brushed aside that concern and realized that the energy sector including oil & gas would likely benefit from a more heated standoff.
This is all so sad and tragic. The implosion of the Soviet Union presented a huge opportunity for a peace dividend. Instead of bringing Russia closer to the western fold — which is where many Russians would have wanted to go — the west antagonized them by putting NATO soldiers in the Baltic states. Armed neutral Sweden and Finland to the north had made out well and both were clearly pro-western.
Erik,
Russia was invited to join NATO in 2000, but said no. Are you sure of how many Russians “wanted to go” into the western fold?
Of course the Baltic states were independent prior to WW II and clearly wanted to be in the western fold and have made every possible move to be in it, not only joining NATO and the EU but even adopting the euro. Do you think they should not have been allowed to join NATO? Do you think they have no reason to fear Russia, the silly little countries, who do they think they are/
As for Sweden and Finland, while both were and remain formally neutral, Sweden was heavily armed on its own all through the Cold War, actually contemplating pursuing nuclear weapons on its own for awhile before giving up on that, while Finland remains just as unarmed as it was back when its president was a KGB agent. You do not know what you are talking about.
“Do you think they should not have been allowed to join NATO?”
One can make a case for this. The defence of these states is not really possible, therefore, back then some officers and politicians objected a NATO membership of these countries.
Ulenspiegel,
You are right that ultimately NATO is not able to defend any of these former Soviet republics or former Warsaw Pact members if Russia were to carry out a full scale invasion of any of them, any more than non-NATO member Ukraine can be defended, and was not when Putin seized Crimea in 2014, which he most certainly would not have dared do if Ukraine had its former 2,000 nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, being in NATO clearly provides some support for those nations now in it, leaving Russia to have to do sneaky things like make cyberattacks on Estonia. This certainly compares with the actual seizing of territory we have seen Putin pull against non-NATO member Ukraine.
Of course, it is true that in Crimea and in parts of eastern Ukraine, there are Russian speakers who would prefer to be in economically better off Russia. But the same cannot be said for the substantial Russian-speaking minority in Estonia, who are far better off economically there than they would be under Russian rule.
Barkley Rosser wrote: “Russia was invited to join NATO in 2000, but said no. Are you sure of how many Russians “wanted to go” into the western fold?”
Oh? Never stumbled across that event in 2000. References? Yes. I am sure that many Russians as in the people wanted to get closer to the west. The Russian government undertook several steps in that direction.
“‘As for Sweden and Finland, while both were and remain formally neutral, Sweden was heavily armed on its own all through the Cold War, actually contemplating pursuing nuclear weapons on its own for awhile before giving up on that, while Finland remains just as unarmed as it was back when its president was a KGB agent. You do not know what you are talking about.”
Barkley, your arrogance is noted. Is it because you are an academic light weight? Why the juvenile, disrespectful behaviour?
There is much more discuss here and it ultimately relates to the point that Frankel raised but perhaps that discussion belongs elsewhere.
Erik,
Yeah, I am arrogant in general and especially when it come to matters involving Russia.
My wife, currently ill with Covid, was a top economic adviser to the Soviet government in the late 70s and early 80s, with the current head of the Russian central bank her former student. Our effort to get married in 1984 led to her being not only fired but arrested and tortured. Our marriage was blocked. I fought against both the US and USSR governments over this, holding a press conference in front of the State Department in Nov. 1986 denouncing both governments for their policies. I succeeded in getting them changed, and her arrival in the US on April 4, 1987 was the top story on CNN.
We know all the top economists in Russia and lots of other people there as well, as well as some people no longer among the living thanks to You Know Who who was praised by our former president when he was asked what he thought about You Know Who having people offed who criticized him.. My top five publications that deal with Russia have a combined 751 google scholar citations. Yeah, academic lightweight.
The matter of Russia and NATO is very complicated with movements coming from both sides with a culmination in 2000 in failure, really coming out of both sides, despite various agreements and working setups made, with most of that now all pulled back, mostly by Putin. A good coverage is in nato.int/acad/fellow/98-00/davydof.pdf .
So, how many refereed publications do you have on Russia? How many Russians in Russia do you know, especially ones at high levels? Have you gone up against the US or Soviet, much less the Russian government on a major international policy and won? Have you?
Yes, I am arrogant, and I have bloody well good reason to be on this matter. I do not think you do, although I understand you do not like being talked down to. But, sorry, that is exactly what you deserve with your ignorant remarks.
Erik,
Will partially retract on one point. Finland has purchased arms from the US and has a partnership relation with NATO, but it not a member and continues to keep its head down somewhat carefully with respect to Russia, in contrast with Sweden, who, despite its formal neutrality has for decades had its arms clearly aimed at formerly the USSR and now Russia.
Georgia was promised membership in NATO in April 2008. In August 2008, under cover of the opening of the Olympics, Georgia launched an unprovoked attack on Ossetia which borders Georgia and Russia. Ossetia was protected by Russian peacekeeping forces who were attacked in the Georgian onslaught. Russia responded to the Georgian attack and quickly turned back and defeated Georgian forces. The point however is that Georgia attacked Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers, and that should be made clear and remembered. Surely so:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?ref=world
November 7, 2008
Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY
Newly available accounts raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that it acted defensively against Russian aggression.
November 7, 2008
Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY
TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm….
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/11/07/world/07georgia_600.JPG
Georgian Forces Fired Rockets at South Ossetia in August.
By Vano Shlamov – AFP
[ Georgia attacking Ossetia was actually watched immediately on television through much of Europe. ]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20gorbachev.html?ref=opinion
August 20, 2008
Russia Never Wanted a War
By MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
Moscow
THE acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?
Russia did not want this crisis….
[ Precisely so, as the Georgian attack on Ossetia was immediately shown on television in much of Europe. ]
As for Russia in August 2008, the President was Dmitri Medvedev. Mr. Putin was Prime Minister, and at the time of the Georgian attack on Ossetia was attending the opening ceremony at the Olympics. President Bush was also attending the opening ceremony and spoke Mr. Putin after the Georgian attack had begun. Then, Mr. Putin returned to Russia. The Russian defensive response quickly overwhelmed Georgian forces.
Mikhail Gorbachev should be remembered as having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. The account by Mikhail Gorbachev of the unprovoked Georgian military assault on Ossetia was authoritative:
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/16/world/evolution-europe-gorbachev-gets-nobel-peace-prize-for-foreign-police.html ,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20gorbachev.html
ltr,
Oh my heavens. It has been pointed out to you that you are spouting utter hypocrisy on this matter, but here you go again, basically repeating with some wiggles your same nonsense.
You keep talking about Georgia attacking “Ossetia.” But it was attacking South Ossetia, recognized as being a part of Georgia by all those people you noted watched the attack on TV in Europe. However, North Ossetia remains under the total control of Russia without a ghost of a chance of separating off to join with South Ossetia to create a political entity that could accurately be called “Ossetia.”
“The reason Biden thought he might not be there was precisely because he was afraid bin Laden would get tipped off by Pak intel.
Your kind of slow on this, Rick. Looks like you are the one that is mentally challenged.”
Barkley Rosser
Wrong again. If you read the numerous accounts, you’d realize that Biden’s concern was not that Bin Laden was there but might get warned by the Pakistanis. The operation was super secret and Obama wasn’t going to inform the Pakistani’s until after the raid was over. So, the Pakistanis couldn’t warn Bin Laden, since they knew nothing about a potential raid. However. the intel wasn’t super solid and Biden was worried that Bin Laden wasn’t there in the first place, just as I said. If you think otherwise, feel free to cite some sources for once.
Your knowledge of the facts of the Bin Laden raid is as shallow as your understanding of defamation law it would seem.
This has already been addressed, Rick. Why are you repeating yourself? Your knowledge of Biden is clearly just completely idiotic and wrong. Nobody here is taking any of this stuff on this matter from you seriously for even one second, it is just so worthless.
Barkley,
No, it hasn’t been addressed. I asked both you and 2slugs for some kind of documentation for your contention that Biden was worried about the Pakistanis tipping off Bin Laden, which is why he opposed the raid. You just keep repeating your assertion without providing any evidence. That’s because you can’t of course.
A while back I got tired of your tactics, when you claimed that one of my time series points was wrong, again without offering any evidence. Since points like that can be demonstrated mathematically, making it much harder for you to weasel out of, I challenged you to prove your statement and if you didn’t I was going to do it for you. I gave you sufficient time and then I proved I was right. I did the same with slugbaits on SIR modeling. You’d think that would make you two more cautious about making things up without evidence, but that’s wishful thinking I suppose.
BEN RHODES: And then Biden. Biden had worked a lot on Pakistan over the years, and he really laid out the risk of this going wrong and the potential for confrontation with the Pakistanis. Our embassy being overrun, the fallout that could ensue. I don’t remember it as being firmly against as much as it being about like, “I’m going to point out the downsides that you need to consider from the perspective of Pakistan.”
Further down in the same article:
BEN RHODES: Biden pulled me and Denis McDonough into the small conference room in the Situation Room and asked us, “You guys think he’s going to do this?” We both said, “Yes, absolutely. He always said he would.” What was interesting about that is that Biden said, “Look, I see my role as trying to stretch out his options.” In a sense, Biden was just trying to make sure that Obama had a bunch of room for his decision-making. That always made me think that while he was opposed in the meeting, that some of his opposition was this role he saw for himself—he took a position against the grain to just create space.
And continuing…….
LEON PANETTA: The concern during that trip was whether or not the Pakistanis would, either with radar or some kind of visible sighting, have been alerted to the operation—that did not happen, fortunately. They got over the compound, and it was at that point that because of the heat that day, the heat came up from the ground and stalled one of the engines on one of the helicopters.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/30/osama-bin-laden-death-white-house-oral-history-484793
Rick, this may be difficult for you to grasp, but everyone in the “Situation Room” was worried about the Pakistanis tipping off bin Laden.
I’m gonna get ill. I think I just gave credit to Hillary Clinton for something. Menzie, you’re supposed to catch those before you post them……..
Moses,
Using that article, you are trying to take a concern that Panetta expressed after the raid was going on and trying to convert that to a concern before the raid, and specifically, a concern that Biden had in advising Obama not to go. Nothing in your article shows that was Biden’s concern. Let’s just remind ourselves of what I said:
RS:
“Biden argued against taking out Bin Laden to Obama when they thought they had him because Biden said the US needed more evidence before violating Pakistan airspace. Biden was willing to risk Bin Laden getting away because he worried Pakistan might be angry. Fortunately Obama was much tougher than Biden and ordered the strike, taking out Bin Laden.”
And RS:
“If you had bothered to read Obama’s memoir “A Promised Land,” you’d know that Obama himself recounted the debate and discussion around whether to strike against Bin Laden or not. The problem was that they could not be certain that Bin Laden was there. As Obama recounts it, most of his advisors favored the raid, while acknowledging the risks. Hillary barely favored it, 51-49, and she emphasized the problem of rupturing relations with Pakistan or even getting into a confrontation with the Pakistani military. That was a risk they were all worried about. As Obama recounted Biden’s advice: ‘Joe also weighed in against the raid, arguing the given the enormous consequences of failure, I should defer any decision until the intelligence community was more certain that Bin Laden was in the compound.'”
You, 2slugs, pg13, and Barkley tried to claim that a) Biden wasn’t worried about Bin Laden not being there, but instead worried the Pakistanis would tip him off; and 2) Biden wasn’t worried about disrupting the Pakistani relationship. I already quoted Obama, who was in the room, who said that Biden was in fact worried about whether Bin Laden was actually there as well as the potential repercussions of such a raid.
In your latest article, you provide no evidence that Biden’s reason for opposing the raid was that he worried about the Pakistanis tipping off Bin Laden. Let me show you what real evidence looks like. The authoritative account on the raid is the book Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden . Let me quote from that book on Biden’s reasons for opposing the raid:
“Joe Biden, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate when Obama was eleven, and been chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before becoming Vice President, was worried about the local fallout from the raid: a possible firefight with the Pakistanis oar an incident and the US Embassy in Islamabad. ‘We need greater certainty that Bin Laden is there,” he advised. ‘The risks to the Pakistan relationship and its importance are such that we need to know more before acting.’ Referring to the earlier discussion of percentages and and close calls, Biden said: ‘You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table.’ Biden concluded: ‘We owe the man a direct answer. Mister President, my suggestion is: Don’t go.'”
That independent account of the facts is exactly consistent with my account of the facts. And my interpretation is equally valid. This was the situation: The U.S. finally gets some intelligence that Bin Laden, who ordered planes to flown into the world trade center and the pentagon, and had been in hiding for 10 years, could be located in Pakistan. Now the U.S. had a chance to strike, but they couldn’t be sure that Bin Laden was there. Biden worried about upsetting the Pakistanis more than he worried about letting Bin Laden get away. Obama had no such cowardice and ordered the strike, knowing that he risked upsetting the Pakistanis if the intelligence turned out to be wrong. But as the book recounts, “Despite Biden’s warnings about the irreparable damage to the U.S. Pakistani relationship that a raid in Abbottabad might cause, Obama felt that whatever happened as a result of the raid, the American relationship with Pakistan could absorb the blow…”
See, Moses, that’s how you do research. You don’t just google wildly until you find something and then either don’t read it or don’t read it carefully, like you just did again. You do some objective serious research to be sure about what the facts actually are. I realize that you, pg13, 2slugs, and Barkley Rosser are too lazy to do that, judging from the many years I’ve watched them on this blog. But if you are not willing to put in the work to establish the facts, you’ll always be an ignorant buffoon.
Wow, Rick Stinker, so you are the only man here on this blog with “Real evidence”?? Why didn’t you just tell everyone that at the start of this quarrel and it would have saved us all a lot of time. Please be sure to notify the journalists at the publication Politico that they are all a bunch of jokesters so they don’t stray away from your version of events by interviewing multiple people who were in the Situation Room and part of the decision making process on the bin Laden strike. I’m sure they’ll appreciate you setting them straight on the matter.
If I knew earlier that only you had the ability to find the real authentic “research”, I would have just deferred to you from the very start Rick. I yield all my future uses of Google over to Rick Stryker and donald trump. Never again will I type a differing view from you or donald trump’s Defense Dept. Gosh Golly I won’t.
@barkley,
“if Ukraine still had those 2,000 plus nuclear weapons? ”
if ukraine kept the weapons several maybe overlapping possibilities:
they would not be secured, see the event since the 2014 coup. some would get in to the “wrong hands”.
they would not be maintained, which is dangerous as losing them
they would not be deliverable, soviet rocket scientists manned their rocket force, javelin systems is too technical for the ukriae w’o “help”..
the weapons would not be dismantled as most were after removal with usa cooperation.
no fair to ask me to disprove your assertions!
paddy
paddy,
It may be that having all of those former republics keeping their nuclear weapons would have been potentialy dangerous and destabiolizing. But this is exactly what we have with places like Pakistan and India and North Korea right now. This was exactly why the US and UK thought it wise to convince those former republics to give up their weapons with a promise to defend their territorial integrity, with Russia signing on. But then Russia violated those accords, and neither the US not the UK did anything about it, oh, aside from some economic sanctions.
As for their rockets being managed by “Soviet rocket scientists,” I guess you somehow think those scientists were all Russian rather than Ukrainian. You obviously know very little about this. Ukraine was long a major center of the Soviet aerospace industry, run mostly by locals. You are just trying to make up foryour embarrassment in having made such ludicrous and factually misinformed arguments.
So, sure, maybe we all prefer Ukraine does not have all those nuclear weapons, but it sure as heck is a very hard fact that if they had them, no way we would be seeing Putin grabbing Crimea or supporting separatists or piling jup troops on the border and making all these outrageous demands ha has made, not for one bloody second, paddy.
Moses said:
“Quoted the U.S. view of the situation”
“Hey dumb$shit, you know donald trump and HIS Defense Dept were the ones being quoted, right?? Or can you even read calendar dates?? You cherry picked one paragraph from NYT. Do you think Ukraine officials, multiple of which were quoted in the article, know when their own nation is being encroached on?? Or did you get your Cracker Jacks prize degree from the Rudy Giuliani Community College of Foreign Policy?? This is the same trump led Defense Dept that had its elbow up its ass with Rudy Giuliani taking bribes acting as trump’s lead on Ukraine not long before hundreds of illiterate rednecks violently attacked our nation’s Capitol and attacked police, killing some of the Capitol police, while Mark Esper, Christopher C. Miller, “and Defense Dept friends” were at the salon having their nails buffed…….. Not sure if that’s a “Defense Dept” you want to be quoting. Just how DUMB are you Rick Stinker??”
I was trying to encourage you to read the articles you posted. You have taken a baby step towards becoming a conservative by attempting to do some research to establish what the facts actually are, unlike typical progressives such as pg13 or 2slugbaits, who just make bald-faced assertions with no backing data. But a quick google to obtain some headlines is not enough. You actually need to read the articles as well to see if they back up the point you are trying to make.
I quoted just one part of the NYT article you linked to that asserted that the US could not corroborate the military buildup the Ukrainians had alleged. What you should have done at that point was to go back and read the article rather than trying to explain my point away by saying that the U.S. Defense Department was making false statements under Trump, an allegation you don’t have the slightest bit of evidence to justify. If you had read the article, you’d see that the point of the article was that no one could corroborate it. The article also says that NATO couldn’t corroborate a military buildup. Are you going to explain that away by saying that Trump also controlled Nato. The NYT also asked an independent analyst at the International Crisis Group, who also could not confirm the military buildup. Did Trump get to that analyst too? Is there a vast conspiracy?
My comments stand, and anyone can read the NYT article, along with the 3 other links I posted. I encourage them to do so. I put the article in its full context. I know Rick Stinker prefers it when a corrupt donald trump led Defense Dept leadership lies to the American people, and therefor Rick only wants to discuss donald trump’s WH Cabinet talking points as it relates to trump’s fondling of Putin’s upper thigh. I’m sure the intelligent readers here see the irony that RIck Stinker labels himself “conservative” at the same time he proclaims his love of news sourced from “big government” in his comment just above. Rick Stryker “conservative”?? More like Rick Stryker, immoral houseboy for donald trump.
Rick, your unabashed love and slave-boy like adoration of donald trump and his Defense Dept propaganda makes me think of the scene in Spartacus between Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis. I think we may have to change your name to “Rick Licinius Crassus”
“No man can withstand Rome. No nation can withstand her. How much less a boy? Hmm? There’s one way to deal with Rome, Antoninus. You must serve her. You must abase yourself before her. You must grovel at her feet. You must – love her. Isn’t that so, Antoninus?”
When you exhibit your deep unbreakable love by defending donald trump here, Rick Licinus Crassus, are we to surmise your taste includes both oysters and snails??
Moses,
When you tell people to read the articles rather than pointing to the evidence in them yourself, it’s clear that you have been lying. You are counting on the fact that no one will bother to read them. If I’m wrong about my characterization of the NYT article, why don’t you point out why rather than telling people to read it for themselves? You aren’t doing that because those articles don’t establish the point that there was a similar large buildup of Russian military during the Trump years as we’ve seen in 2021.
You just did a quick google search, got some headlines, didn’t bother to read the articles, and now I’m calling you on your laziness and dishonesty. So now you are trying now to divert attention from your chicanery. You are a typical progressive commenter on this blog.
Moses said:
“Quoted the U.S. view of the situation”
“Hey dumb$shit, you know donald trump and HIS Defense Dept were the ones being quoted, right?? Or can you even read calendar dates?? You cherry picked one paragraph from NYT. Do you think Ukraine officials, multiple of which were quoted in the article, know when their own nation is being encroached on?? Or did you get your Cracker Jacks prize degree from the Rudy Giuliani Community College of Foreign Policy?? This is the same trump led Defense Dept that had its elbow up its ass with Rudy Giuliani taking bribes acting as trump’s lead on Ukraine not long before hundreds of illiterate rednecks violently attacked our nation’s Capitol and attacked police, killing some of the Capitol police, while Mark Esper, Christopher C. Miller, “and Defense Dept friends” were at the salon having their nails buffed…….. Not sure if that’s a “Defense Dept” you want to be quoting. Just how DUMB are you Rick Stinker??”
I was trying to encourage you to read the articles you posted. You have taken a baby step towards becoming a conservative by attempting to do some research to establish what the facts actually are, unlike typical progressives such as pg13 or 2slugbaits, who just make bald-faced assertions with no backing data. But a quick google to obtain some headlines is not enough. You actually need to read the articles as well to see if they back up the point you are trying to make.
I quoted just one part of the NYT article you linked to that asserted that the US could not corroborate the military buildup the Ukrainians had alleged. What you should have done at that point was to go back and read the article rather than trying to explain my point away by saying that the U.S. Defense Department was making false statements under Trump, an allegation you don’t have the slightest bit of evidence to justify. If you had read the article, you’d see that the point of the article was that no one could corroborate it. The article also says that NATO couldn’t corroborate a military buildup. Are you going to explain that away by saying that Trump also controlled Nato. The NYT also asked an independent analyst at the International Crisis Group, who also could not confirm the military buildup. Did Trump get to that analyst too? Is there a vast conspiracy?
Comrade Rosser,
Nobody will accuse you of a realist perspective on foreign policy.
But make no mistake, you are a lightweight. Have seen lots of lightweights like you in action over the years. You acquire a bit of expertise in one area and then self-appoint yourself as an expert in other others. Academic lightweight.
So what is guiding your view on this? Good old fashioned American-style celebrity narcissism? Because we all should blindly follow Men of Great Stature like yourself? In other words, what you actually accomplish policy wise does not matter as long as you are perceived as being virtuous and righteous?
I’ll give you hint: academic lightweights use authority arguments.
Comrade Rosser: Do you really believe that US foreign policy should be conducted on the basis of personal revenge and past wrong-doing? Or pious moral virtue signalling?
I have a request and a question for you. If you can explain how NATO membership for the Baltic states and other former members of the Warsaw Pact improve the lives of Russians, I would be much obliged. It would seem that Russian civil liberties are a real concern of yours.
Surely there is more here than US domestic regulatory capture at work. Surely there is more than increased US exports of highly subsidized weapon systems and agricultural products.
Now imagine for some strange reason the Russians decide invade and occupy one or more Baltic states. Do you expect NATO to militarily engage the Russians? I certainly do not.
To be clear, I see no reason for the Russians to invade and occupy the Baltic states regardless of whether they belong to NATO or not.
Erik,
Oh, I shall respond to this.
You ask how NATO membership for Baltic states and former Warsaw Pact members improves the lives of Russians? I doubt it does. But it also does not hurt the lives of Russians. Putin is lying that all the weapons in those nations is part of some effort to commit aggression against Russia. But the vast majority of people reading this know that this is a total pile of crap. All of those weapons are defensive against a possible invasion by Russia. And Russia has invaded neighbors, lots of them, including Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova. Nobody has invaded Russia in the last 30 years and nobody is remotely threatening to do so. How stupid are you to pose such dumb garbage?
If you think I am an only an expert in one area who has then somehow appointed himself an expert in others, well, I suggest you check out my publication recotd, either by looking at my CV, available on my website, or on google scholar. I have done something that very few people have done: published in refereed journals of many academic disciplines, along with many sub-disciplines of economics. Russian economics is actually a fairly minor area of my expertise, even though I do indeed know more about it than anybody here. A partial list of the disciplines I have published in refereed journals includes physics, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, biology, psychology, geography, sociology, finance, management, and several others. I shall not waste everybody’s time by listing all the sub-disciplines in economics I have published in. Did you really intend to make such a blatantly stupid remark without checking on whether you would have a shred of credibility when you made it? Clearly not. What a joke.
Comrade Rosser wrote: “Erik,
Will partially retract on one point. Finland has purchased arms from the US and has a partnership relation with NATO, but it not a member and continues to keep its head down somewhat carefully with respect to Russia, in contrast with Sweden, who, despite its formal neutrality has for decades had its arms clearly aimed at formerly the USSR and now Russia.”
—————————————————-
Keep digging.
Please share the incidents where Finland and the former Soviet Union or Russia have colluded to hurt western economic and security interests.
Finland ranks rather well in the Heritage-Fraser institutes human freedom (sic) index at position #6 ahead of the USA at position #15. Do you believe the Finnish would more secure, richer and happier if Finland was a NATO country member?
Incidentally, do you know the total economic cost to the American economy of sanctions against Russia? I would guess that it is in the neighbourhood of few hundred billion dollars.
Would you argue that the sanctions against Russia have been effective? And if so, how so?
Erik,
Sorry, I have no idea how much the economic sanctions in place have hurt Russia, and we can debate what their effect has been. I note that shortly after Putin supported the Donbas separatists, he went into negotiations with Ukraine, Belarus, and France (not the US), which led to the Minsk Accords. Those basically froze the lines in that conflict, which have largely held since, with those leaving some territory under Ukrainiian control that the separatists controlled briefly, most notably the port of Mariupol. I have noted taking it would be the obvious easy thing to do if Putin did want to do some minor military action now to show his toughness. But it has long been speculated that part of the reason he accepted the Minsk Accords was he did not want to have any further tightening of the sanctions, however much they have cost (you can tell us if you want, although some here like Rick S. say they count for nothing), although he was and is not going to give up Crimea, the seizure of which brought about the sancions.
On Finland, I do not think I said anything about Finland and the former USSR “colluding” on anythng.Where did you get that nonsense? It is well known that former Finnish President Kaukonen, in for 25 years, was in fact a paid KGB agent. It was not that Finland actively aided USSR, but its neutrality tilted to USSR in contrast to the neutrality of Sweden’s. Russia ruled Finland in the 19th century, and USSR defeated it in their special war at the beginning of WW II, and took some territory, notably Karelia. Finland has bee basically subservient since, although more independent recently, while not activel part of any Soviet actions.
Oh yes, Erick, you also asked how much the sanctions cost the US economy. No effing idea and not going to waste one effing second trying to find out.
Frankly every single point you attempted to make in this last comment is completely silly and worthless. Sorry if you find that “arrogant” of me.
Comrade Rosser. Thank you for the great replies. I believe that they honestly reflect who you are.
Mind you I was a little disappointed that you did not sketch out your proposal for improving the lives of Russian civilians. Perhaps you do not care? Perhaps you only care about how you are perceived? You spent time on this above. I naturally assumed that you “care”.
Perhaps you feel more comfortable and secure with the largest military budget in the world?
I must apologize for my own arrogance. Imagine, challenging a great American economist like yourself on ‘costs’ or real ‘strategic threats’ as opposed to poorly articulated imaginary threats that accomplish little except for making you feel better.
“Frankly every single point you attempted to make in this last comment is completely silly and worthless. Sorry if you find that “arrogant” of me.”
That is OK. I don’t expect anything else. It is what I expect from a complete lightweight academic like yourself.
I really don’t expect any substantive answers to any questions on this because if you had any, you would have already explained how including former Warsaw Treaty countries in NATO makes the original members of NATO safer.
That is the obvious question is it not? Even for a lightweight like you?
Erick,
Your comments and questions are just iincreasingly ncoherent. I am not going to comment further on them on this thread, which has become a complete waste of time.
I may be a “lightweight academic,” (somehow emboldened like Moses likes to do when he is writing especially foollish things in an effort to impress readers) but I have spoken at Moscow State University (MGU), the New Economic School (Reshka, in Moscow), and the Central Mathematical-Economics Institute (Tsemi, also in Moscow). Have you addressed any of those, much less published in refereed journals on either the Soviet or Russian economies? Got any citations to your publications like I have? And, again, do you know any Russsians in Russia and what they think? It appears the answer is “no” to all of those.
Oh, just for kicks, I shall note that in August, 1992, when I and my wife participated in a conference of the International Economic Association in Moscow, when I gave my talk, unlike what happened at any others I attended, three guys wearing black leather jackets showed up to stand in the back of the room and look at me hostilely. That was the well-known de facto uniform of the guys who worked in the outfit V.V. Putin used to work for. I smiled and nodded at them, just to make sure they would know that they were not able to intimidate me, any more than you can with your increasingly incoherent remarks on all this here.
So, indeed, snovem godem (“Happy new year” in Russian). Really.