There are only two Americans in the last century that the Russians truly came to fear. Ronald Reagan and George S. Patton. What Reagan and Patton understood, communicated; and in the case of Reagan, acted upon, was the idea that the Russians not only respect true strength but those who show the ability to use that strength to achieve just means.
General Patton’s exploits in Europe are legendary. Both the Soviets and the Nazis were stunned that Patton did not lead the final assault on the European continent. Patton understood what the true intentions of the Soviets were and unlike Ike, FDR or Harry Truman, had a plan to take them out. Not just deal with them.
Reagan brought down the Soviet Union. Liberals will tell you everything from market forces to the Pope being the reason the Iron Curtain came down. But, it was Reagan; plain and simple. Reagan kept Congress focused, the American public informed and most importantly, made sure the Soviets knew that it was his purpose to bring them down.
They both respected and feared him. The current leadership in Moscow has no such fear of Barack Obama. Do they respect Obama? Who knows? Who cares?
This past week, Obama sent a letter to Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev. Details coming out show that Obama offered to take missile defense off the table in exchange for Russia helping America deal with Iranian nuclear ambition. Medvedev must have read the letter and thanked the corpse of Lenin that resolution of the missile defense issue turned out to be so easily solved. Obama capitulated barely a month after Bush left town.
Oh and let’s not kid ourselves – it is capitulation. What is to prevent Medvedev or Putin from giving a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to the Iranians stating the need for them to abandon their drive towards nukes while continuing to send in supplies and unemployed Russian scientists through the back door? There is nothing preventing this!
Putin and his generals now have the green light to finish what they started in Georgia and to possibly expand into other territories of interest (read: Ukraine). They know that Obama has neither the stomach nor spine to stand-up to them. The American President is not even a paper tiger. That is how easy it will be for them to roll the U.S.
And roll, they will. Medvedev is already replacing Governors in Russia using the recession as an excuse to get rid of old dead wood that aligned themselves with Gorbachev more so than Putin. A corrupt central government has seen exports of gas, oil and minerals shrink. Many factions are fighting for those precious rubles. Civil war is one possibility as is expansion into former Soviet territories. Does anyone believe Obama would do anything to restrict the flow of oil and gas from the Ukraine to Western Europe if the Russians took over power in Kiev?
After just a month into his presidency, it is difficult to gauge how kind history will be to Barack Obama but at this pace it is clear that his international leadership skills resemble Jimmy Carter. No sense of direction, capitulation before confrontation, and a reliance on advisors who are unqualified to provide guidance on foreign affairs.
You know, we could have gotten Russia back.
Uma Richie Tuesday, March 3rd at 5:21PM EST (link)I will give GHWB a pass for not engaging the former Soviet Union. At the end of his term, it was still too early to determine whether democracy was going to stick there.
But WJC blew it. We needed to reconstruct Russia just as we had a Marshall plan for Europe and just as we are rebuilding Iraq. They were our adversary in the Cold War and we beat them. We are America, and we help the new democracies that we have created.
But we didn’t and the Russian economy tanked, laying the groundwork for hardline leadership.
If you read Doug Feith’s _War and Decision_, you will see that a GWB priority in the first few months of 2001 was salvaging the situation with Russia. 9/11 and liberating Afghanistan put a big wet blanket on that goal.
But c’mon, Obama, just to roll over and play dead? Have you not read any history at all? Do you have any idea of the consequences of your actions?
Now Medvedev can do a Staples commercial.![]()
This presidential nightmare is a whole order of magnitude worse than I thought it would be.
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“We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.” -Lech Walesa
Good points, Uma
grdred944 Tuesday, March 3rd at 5:35PM EST (link)You are right on-target re. WJC doing absolutely nothing. I think it is fortunate for us that the hardliners didn’t come out ahead at that time. Although, that may be moot as the hardliners are back in business now and front and center in the regime.
I have long felt that the real challenges America and the West face still come from Eastern Europe and I am hoping that history will not look back at the period between 1989 and 2010 as merely a pause in Russian expansionism. Twenty years is not a long period of time in the grand scheme of things.
Other notes of interest re: foreign players
izoneguy Tuesday, March 3rd at 6:17PM EST (link)Why Cuba’s Dreams of Major Oil Discoveries Might Come True
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/energy/2009/03/03/why-cubas-dreams-of-major-oil-discoveries-might-come-true.html
Raúl Castro puts his own stamp on Cuba’s leadership
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0304/p04s01-woam.html
Guinea Bissau assassination ‘not a coup’: AU
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jJyy6Sa54V4q6KRKCJd4ieybjxVQ
“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson
The One is going to rolled right over by Russia!...
JadedByPolitics Tuesday, March 3rd at 6:39PM EST (link)he is a weak leader and they are schooled in the very best way of beating your enemy they have no rules! They will crush him and laugh while doing it!
Whoever has his enemy at his mercy &
does not destroy him is his own enemy
And the money
Wayne Tuesday, March 3rd at 9:39PM EST (link)the Obamunist thinks he’ll save on defense, will have to be spent on defense somewhere down the road, just to get the U.S. back to where we were on November 3, 2008.
Uma, I think the Obamunist has read history, I think he has great admiration for Neville Chamberlain and Vlad Lenin.
“Hell, these are Marines. Men like them held Guadalcanal, and took Iwo Jima, Baghdad ain’t s–t”. Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly, USMC, Deputy CG, First MEF
He Won't Spend It
IJB Wednesday, March 4th at 12:33AM EST (link)Ultimately, the dreams of the true Obamabots is to turn the U.S. into another North Korea, Cuba or Zimbabwe.
They could not care less if the world burns around them.
As long as they are allowed to create their own vision of Hell within these borders, the rest matters not a whit to them.
I've said it elsewhere
CJB68 Wednesday, March 4th at 7:23AM EST (link)Thank the ‘housepets’. They outflanked us and outnumbered us. They got their ‘One’.
I’ve also been talking about the ‘Other Shoe’. I’ve been watching it, waiting for it to drop. Whether the shoe drops out of the hands of a Medvedev (and Putin), an Ahmadinejhad or a coalition of terrorists like the Taliban or Al Qaeda, it will drop.
The results are not going to be pretty. One could hope that when it hits, the would-be totalitarian regime being prepared for the United States gets flattenened and we’re able to pull outselves out of the hole left behind to regain our freedom and kick those (censored)s back to the hole from which they crawled…
Delusional and Arrogant. The 2008 Democratic Presidential Ticket.
The shoe will drop louder than Krushchev at the UN
grdred944 Wednesday, March 4th at 11:33AM EST (link)My money is on the shoe dropping out of Putin’s hand first. The Russians still assert enough control over Iran that in this economy they will allow Ahmadinejhad to bark loudly but not bite. Given the shift to the right in Israel, Iran will be content to follow Moscow’s lead.
Putin appreciates history and appreciates that Russia now faces an America that has not been this weak since Jimmy Carter. We all remember what they did when Carter was President. If it weren’t for Reagan we’d all be eating beets today. Sidebar — I hate beets!
Putin will not wait for the Russian economy to completely collapse before setting his sights on completing what was started in Georgia last year and in looking at additional targets.