Ursa Minor

"In other words, this is cold war nonsense." In the Washington Post?

Hold it. Obama is getting played with the Russians? Maybe he should go look in Putin's eyes. After all, that worked rather well for the past resident of the White House.

Nice post JK. We should cooperate with Russia to reduce or eliminate our land-based nuclear stockpiles. These missiles are so old that many of them could fail if we did try and use them. Also, the program to secure Russia's nuclear arsenal needs to be fully funded. This program was cut severely when Bush was in charge and running our country into the ground.

Why would anyone pay any more attention to Krauthammer than to Karl Rove? We know what either will say: "Obama bad." Think of the trees and electricity that could be saved if their lengthy musings were kept to that essence.
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Here Diehl seems to join the ranks of those who can't tell the difference between capitulation and merely refraining from habitual antagonism and posturing. As soon as I saw the Shoe Queen cited as an authority I knew little real thought would follow.

Great post, Joe.
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We lack the resources, the moral authority, and the strategic imperative to try to remake the world in our image.
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Our desire to identify anti-Russia good guys and Russia-stooge good guys in places like Georgia and Ukraine has been damn near as much an exercise in counterproductive self-delusion as our identifying freedom fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 1980s.

(and slow-walking Georgia and Ukraine's entry into NATO),
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Can someone explain to me why this is a Good Thing? Why I, as an American, would want the U.S. to enter into a strategic alliance Ukraine and Georgia?
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Can someone also explain to me what practical sense it makes to guarantee the security of Georgia if "Realism dictates that if the Russians actually want to swallow Georgia, there's nothing we can do to stop them"?
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So, OOH we lack the ability to actually ensure Georgia's security. But OTOH, if Russia does attack, we pledge to get into a shooting war. Seems like the most brilliant foreign policy scenario since the start of WWI.

Egad. Now you've done it. You enticed me to follow a Krauthammer link. When I read the Diehl piece, it was significantly less belligerent than I anticipated based on your response. Now I know that I simply hadn't ventured deep enough into the muck.
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The one thing I find most inexplicable is the debate over the 'missle sheild' This is well known to be ineffective technology. Can I assume that the batteries in question can easily be repurposed as midrange offensive missles and that that's the actual point of the exercise?

Respectfully, Paul Dirks, what is your rationale for believing that the driving force behind the advocacy of Rumsfelds, Boltons, and Krauthammers for the missile shield is rational?

How nice that the neo-cons can worry about Russia while the rest of us worry about foreclosure, jobs, recession...

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Well said, sqr1. Add me to the list of those who do not believe that it is in the strategic benefit of the United States to guarantee the security and sovereignty of Georgia, or its territorial integrity vis a vis the two "breakaway" provinces.
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We are heavily overcommitted to Israeli "security" (and by security I mean whatever measures the Likudnik wing of Israeli politics desires), and we should not make the same mistake with Georgia. At least in Israel their biggest threat doesn't have thousands of nuclear-warheads as Russia does.
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Dare I say it, but: America First.

I took "slow walking Georgia and Ukraine's entry into NATO" to mean just that - slowing it down. Not granting them undying support, as McCain did last year. In other words, the opposite of what sqr1 and piper1 seem to think.

Is it Groundhog Day? Seems that way when I read Joe's posts of late. Link to a nutter, offer forth his own fo-po CW. So I'll merely alter my comment from his last post:
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[Kraut] is the extremist[s]. Joe, could you pick a better foil for your centrist/imperialist-lite discourse--text vs. subtext. As I've said before, could one of you MSM dullards just once link to a true progressive voice on fo-po or any other issue of merit!? Your calm, reasonable voice, vis a vis [Kraut], masks the fact that the end results are largely the same--militarist (non wus/non Gandhi) intervention in 3 countries. You present no alternatives here--it's all f'ing spin. You're Hillary Clinton to his John Bolton. Meanwhile the fundamental underlying great-gaming goes on. Why is Chomsky too "radical" to have a voice, but you can link to these absolute nutters. Why are they better foils for your agenda. Perhaps b/c Chomsky, Zinn, et al are actually far more informed than the both of you. Perhaps b/c they'd eat your ass alive in any debate.

So Krauthammer got someone other than Fact Free Fred Hiatt to join the soiled nappy party. These three jokers are afraid of their own shadows. How are they going to bully anyone, let alone the President, into buying their neocon nonsense.

BTW: I will not knowingly open a WaPo webpage until George Will fesses up to lying.

"Meanwhile the fundamental underlying great-gaming goes on. Why is Chomsky too "radical" to have a voice, but you can link to these absolute nutters."
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And the flip side, why are proven hacks such as Diehl and Krauthammer still ensconced in high perches where they can help set the terms of the debate that Joe, in turn, takes on? Reality-based minds want to know. It is the story of our time.

Which goes back to the neoconservative tic of searching for--at times, creating--enemies rather than opportunities. For a long time I was trying to figure out the Neocons' shtick. What did they bring to the GOP table that's been so valuable? I think I've finally figured it out. There's a famous memo from one of the cigarette companies that said "doubt is our product" (doubt of the science that said cigarettes are carcinogenic). For the Neocons, Fear is their product. Fear of Russia. Fear of Islamofascism. Fear of non-existent WMDs. Fear of the "New Class." Fear of "hippies." Fear of the scary black man (for instance, the one who ran for office recently). Fear of commies (even where they don't remotely exist). This is what they bring to the GOP in getting candidates elected. Sometimes some of the fear is warranted. But that's their specialty... Al Gore spent a good chunk of Assault on Reason talking about it.

I took "slow walking Georgia and Ukraine's entry into NATO" to mean just that - slowing it down.

Yeah, I get that. Obviously Klein does not support the McCain "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes" approach to NATO membership. My point is that the entire premise is flawed. NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia isn't a good idea that needs to be implemented with deft diplomacy. It's a bad idea that will destabilize the region and doesn't even have an upside.

What Oregon JC said.

If you slow-walk slow enough, do you walk backward? I don't see how you could let in a NATO country whose borders are in dispute. Surely NATO could provide some kind of security guarantee short of full membership.
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I agree with jcapan - the MSM runs the gamut from center-right to fringe right. But Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated extremist, so pushback is still useful.
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(According to Newseek, we are a center-right nation and we are all socialists.)

Argh, Newseek s/b Newsweek or perhaps Newsweak

We should absolutely pursue negotiations with every country that is willing to talk to us, and through diplomacy we should secure lasting peace to the best of our ability. Being suspicious of the person sitting across from you at the table is not counter to this policy. After all, the point of diplomacy is to secure your own interest and a healthy level of suspicion in any transaction is prudent.

Russia, however, is unique among the major players on today's political stage. Like most major powers it has strived mightily to increase its projection of power abroad; uniquely, however, it has done almost nothing to build up its national institutions, infrastructure, industry, or economy (beyond oil). Instead, the Kremlin appears to be engaged in a zero sum game with the United States: they aren't simply content that they win, they want us to loose. If they win, but we win also, to them its as if our win cancels out theirs.

This is, after all, a country that in recent years has carried out executions on foreign soil in Western countries of dissidents whose primary crime was criticizing the Kremlin. The Economist had an excellent special report on Russia a couple months ago, where their closing paragraph included an anecdote that provides a telling insight into the Russian psyche:

Russia has the potential to develop into a strong and prosperous nation, but the Kremlin's nationalism, hostility towards the West and authoritarianism make the task more difficult. A two-minute video made by a Russian soldier captured in Georgia (now on YouTube) illustrates the point. As they smash up neat Georgian barracks, the Russians curse their own poverty and hail their victory in the same breath. “They [the Georgians] had everything,” one Russian soldier says. “They had nice barracks, good furniture, and we live like tramps. But they got screwed.”

And for anyone unaware of the Wa-Po's "liberal" fo-po stances:
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http://crooksandliars.com/2007/03/23/rep-obey-slams-the-washington-post-over-the-iraq-war/
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/post-m04.shtml

This is a theme that goes back to John McCain's overreaction to the skirmish in Georgia last summer
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And that was a "skirmish" initiated by Georgia: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/31/russia-georgia (The Guardian's Georgia page is impressive and that article has a lot of interesting links)

Joe: You're being attacked on O'Reilly!

O'Rellly has a tendency to attack anyone who isn't O'Reilly. Bill's got to be sending the Tums stock through the roof all by his lonesome. A black liberal president, a democratic house and senate, red states turning blue. a black RNC chair...I'll bet he's wondering when he's going to wake up from his nightmare. Now if Ann Coulter would only call him and tell him she's pregnant (assuming Ann's really a woman), my life would be complete.

Joe, I wrote a little about the emerging dynamic between Russia and the West, specifically NATO, here(http://dcexile.blogspot.com/2008/11/to-russia-with-love.html) a few months ago. More broadly, however, while I agree with you that we are not on the verge of a new Cold War (or the Cold War revisited), it would be foolish to not recognize that as the United States has watched its freedom of action deteriorate since the invasion of Iraq, and that as Russia's coffers have been filled with petro-dollars, that Russia is reasserting itself in its near-abroad. Russia has had its fill, I believe, of the US fooling around in its traditional sphere.