Condi Rice signed an agreement today to station missiles in Poland. Supposedly aimed at Iran, the installation of these missiles just a few miles from the Russian border serves mainly to enrage the Russians, who see it as part of a grander scheme to encircle Russia.
The issue is bigger than a few missiles. Since '92 when the Soviet Union fell apart and its western satellites (Poland, the Baltic countries, Caucasus, etc.) gained independence, then-president Reagan and Gorbachev agreed, if I recall correctly, that the West and NATO would not move further east to include those countries in its alliance. Since that time, the NATO has moved steadily eastward so that today Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries on Russia's very borders are being considered for NATO membership. In the meantime, Russia has seen a belligerent US bomb and invade Serbia, Afganistan, and Iraq, and threaten war against Iran. What is Russia to think about American intentions? It looks as if the political establishment in Washington is trying to revive the Cold War. It has poked the Russian bear repeatedly and then expresses surprise when it growls.
I really question what national interest of ours is served by including Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic countries in NATO except to support the armament industry in this country and to revive a time in history that we really shouldn't want to go back to. And I really question what national purpose NATO even serves anymore. It's original purpose was to thwart a Soviet attack against western Europe. Nobody believes that is possible anymore, not even the Neo-Cons.
Reviving the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war is not something we should undertake lightly. A cynic might look at the map and see what we've done during the past fifteen years as an attempt to impose our will on the world and say that we've become an aggressive, hegemonic power. We need to be very careful. It could blow up in our face. We've made a lot of mistakes and miscalculations in our foreign policy recently. We don't need to make another, more permanent one.
Whatever Washington can do to continue feeding the military-industrial complex, they will do. That means perpetual war. And nothing will change that until Americans stop bying into the fear-mongering that these politicians are trying to sell us.
If the US is serious about continuing to push at Russia over the Georgian situation and to put missiles in Poland and play the high lord, here's what may lie in store for us:
"Policy makers and specialists in Washington envision a freeze on counterterrorism and nuclear nonproliferation cooperation, manipulation of oil and natural gas supplies, pressure against United States military bases in Central Asia and the collapse of efforts to extend cold war-era arms control treaties.
"'Outrage is not a policy,' said Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under President Clinton and is now the president of the Brookings Institution. 'Worry is not a policy. Indignation is not a policy. Even though outrage, worry and indignation are all appropriate in this situation, they shouldn’t be mistaken for policy and they shouldn’t be mistaken for strategy.'"
The problem with us is that we have NO strategy in our dealings with our adversaries... none except brute force and coercion. And Condi Rice is a joke as a serious and effective diplomat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/world/europe/22policy.html?hp
And carry no war heads, they are designed to slam into an incoming missile and destroy it.
"'Outrage is not a policy,' said Strobe Talbott...."
I heard an interesting discussion about Talbot and the Clinton administration using former leader Yeltsin on the show On Point.
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/08/russia-and-the-west/
For those interested, here is an excellent analysis of the current Georgian situation against the backdrop of NATO (and US) expansionism.
"In the new narrative of the Russia-Georgia war emerging from op-eds and cable news commentaries, Georgia is portrayed as the innocent victim of Russian aggression fighting for its independence.
"However, the political background to that war raises the troubling question of why the George W Bush administration failed to heed warning signs that its policy of NATO expansion right up to Russia's ethnically troubled border with Georgia was both provocative to Russia and encouraging a Georgian regime known to be bent on using force to recapture the secessionist territories.
"There were plenty of signals that Russia would not acquiesce in the alignment of a militarily aggressive Georgia with a US-dominated military alliance. Former Russian president Vladimir Putin (now premier)made no secret of his view that this represented a move by the United States to infringe on Russia's security in the South Caucasus region. In February 2007 he asked rhetorically, "Against whom is this expansion intended?"
"Contrary to the portrayal of Russian policy as aimed at absorbing South Ossetia and Abkhazia into Russia and regime change in Georgia, Moscow had signaled right up to the eve of the NATO summit its readiness to reach a compromise along the lines of Taiwan's status in US-China relations: formal recognition of the sovereignty over the secessionist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in return for freedom to develop extensive economic and political relations. But it was conditioned on Georgia staying out of NATO."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH26Ag02.html
Best description of the situation and miscalculations that I have seen. A day-by-day account of the Georgian situation and worth reading for its larger implications of our involvement in a little known and geopolitically worthless area where we have no business involving ourselves.
"It is, in short, a messy situation. But who is actually responsible for this six-day war in the southern Caucasus? Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili criticizes what he calls a "brutal Russian attack and invasion." In return, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin calls Saakashvili a "war criminal" and talks of the "genocide" committed against Russian citizens. But what are the representatives of the Western community of values saying? The fact is, they are still puzzled."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,574812,00.html