Pajamas Media

70 Comments

1. Adina Kutnicki,Israel:

A Marxist raised Obama, married to a Soviet swooning wife is simply incapable of acting otherwise.

Whereas Bush made many strategic errors regarding Russia’s intentions, at the very least he remembered that soothing words alone won’t protect US interests, hence the missile defense projects.

The US has never been more imperiled than under the (non) leadership of the Obama administration. A catastrophe waiting to engulf us all!

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:12 am 2. narciso:

About what I expected, although this recap from
“Hunt for Red October” came up as a little
surprise. There’s even a little bit of deja vu
as General Shamanov, hero of Chechnya and Georgia, moves forces into the Arctic. Maybe they were just ticked off by Biden’s comments
that Russia was a declining power.I can’t tell you how glad I am that ‘we dodged a bullet’ by not picking the alternative slate

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:16 am 3. Sherab Zangpo:

We cannot reasonably expect from Obama a behavior contrary to his convictions:
for him, America is the bloody imperialist power whose might MUST be destroyed.

He can do that, from his position, by simple OMISSION. No missile defense, no F22, no strong foreign policy.

We keep asking a marxist to do what only an anti-marxist can do.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:22 am 4. Middleman:

Well with oil prices dropping again, Putin had to do something to keep Russian minds off their tanking economy, so he sent some subs out and released that gay-a*s picture of him shirtless riding the horse.

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:26 am 5. Middleman:

#3,
No strong foreign policy? is anti-military? That’s why they are currently working on boosting army size by 22000? There were plenty of Republicans and people within the military that wanted to cut the F-22 as well.
Maybe we should go full-on free market and produce it for Japan and Israel since they both desparately want the F-22?

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:36 am 6. dan:

“a pipeline called Nabucco”

I dont mean to be petty, but I wonder whether anyone will notice the absence of the “NO WAR FOR OIL!!!!” hysterics while Tblisi is being overrun…

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:42 am 7. Marie Claude:

well, Russia is showing off, people were too quick to bury her after 1990

Russia has been part of our history since ages, would you think that such a great power would comply ? it’s ignoring that Russians are proud people

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:45 am 8. Blarty Blarckleblart:

FEAR ZOMBIE BREZHNEV

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:47 am 9. anton:

A bully can smell a coward a mile away (or further…….how far is it from DC to Moscow?). This will only get worse as time goes by.

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:47 am 10. biblio44:

“The acid test for Obama is Georgia.”

He’ll do exactly what Bush did after the Russian invasion: Nothing. And what is he supposed to do? Declare war on Russia (we’re in two wars, why not three?). And as far as the missile defense shield, here I side with that great statesman, Pat Buchanan: If we insist on messing around in Russia’s neighborhood, they’ll mess around in ours — Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

Aug 5, 2009 - 10:53 am 11. Meryl:

The one response I have not seen to Russia’s action in the Atlantic is…surprise! Shock! “How could they!?” “How dare they?!”

I guess even the leftist MSM didn’t remember that if they really believed that we were now deeply loved by tyrannies around the world that they should act shocked about this. They should demand hearings!

Complete, stupid, acquiescence to the predictable behavior of the bully right after the freshmen wimp paid him off.

Aug 5, 2009 - 11:03 am 12. steeple:

Wait, I thought if we stopped behaving so arrogantly and we started engaging with other countries to really listen to what they had to say, respectfully you know?, and then we would all be proud to be Americans again and we wouldn’t have to pretend to be Canadians when travelling abroad, and and and ….

But our foreign policy problems haven’t seen to go away. Maybe some of them are getting worse. Iran is holding Americans hostage? Has that happened before? Oh, yeah it did 30 years ago.

But isn’t our fault because we’ve been a warmongering and arrogant nation these past years? Have we not apologized enough?

Why can’t we all just get along? I put the “Hope and Change” bumper sticker on my car, so why isn’t it working?

sarc off/steeple

Aug 5, 2009 - 11:41 am 13. AThinkingPerson:

Obama is a wimp plain and simple.

Is it to soon to ask him to pack up his mom jeans and head back to Chicago?

Aug 5, 2009 - 11:49 am 14. Lynn:

Speaking of Russia, what’s the news on the agreement between the Czech Republic, Poland and the United States regarding the missile defense shield?

Maybe the submarines are here to persuade us to abandon those plans for the Russian suggested site of Azerbaijan.

Now is Obama’s chance to work with another totalitarian government.

Up periscope.

Aug 5, 2009 - 12:06 pm 15. Middleman:

Marie,
It’s Russia’s own inflated ego and feeling of entitlement to being a superpower that is its own worst enemy. Instead of trying to keep up with the US, or trying to 1-Up us through simpleton stunts like sub and bomber patrols, perhaps they’d be better off spending money on their crumbling infrastructure that’s virtually non-existent as is.
The sooner they relize they can’t match us and NEVER have matched us, the better off they’ll be.

Aug 5, 2009 - 12:12 pm 16. Now and Then:

13. AThinkingPerson:
“Is it to soon to ask him to pack up his mom jeans and head back to Chicago?”

How long did it take you to think of that, person?

Aug 5, 2009 - 12:38 pm 17. Cichawoda:

Russia’s military budget: $45 billion – US military budget: $650 billion
“U.S. officials said the submarines had done nothing to provoke concern.”

So why are we worried?

Oh! News of the non-threatening Russia patrols, that have been going on for months, is released by the Pentagon just as the defense spending bill is before Congress? What a co-winky-dink?

Aug 5, 2009 - 12:53 pm 18. SteveB/Colorado:

#3 Sherab Zangpo “……by omission. No missile defense, no F22, no strong foreign policy.” Well, we won’t ever have a strong foreign policy if we base it on weapons systems that don’t work. We have 187 F22s in the air fleet that spend more time in the shop than they do in the air. Congress & Secretary Gates did the fiscally sound thing by declining to buy more of those, The plane is so unairworthy that it has yet to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

As for missile defense, that concept has been around since the early 1980s and still isn’t workable except for the Patriot system.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:09 pm 19. Saltherring:

“Is it to soon to ask him to pack up his mom jeans and head back to Chicago?”

Heyyy, now, let’s not give the guy a complex or something. Besides, Michelle paid good money for those jeans and might spank Hussein’s butt if he hid them in the bottom drawer.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:11 pm 20. Middleman:

11/12,
At least with Obama, he’s not coming out aggressive from the start, so if other nations want to act like a-holes, then the rest of the world knows their a-holes and they won’t have the “Amerikkkans are arrogant imperialist’ excuse to use.
Then again, Bush let Putin play him like a fiddle. Commie went down to Crawford.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:12 pm 21. Dave:

Definitely, definitely Russia has sent this submarine to show Slow Joe that they are NOT a declining power…

Yet another dimwitted moment for Slow Joe Biden, the man I would have bet MONEY could not have become Vice President.

Proof positive that in government they promote you because of your incompetence.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:17 pm 22. Peter the Bubblehead:

“Is Putin taking advantage of the U.S. president’s weakness?”

I said this is exactly the case as soon as I read the story about the Akulas off the east coast yesterday.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:19 pm 23. larry j:

#3 Sherab Zangpo “……by omission. No missile defense, no F22, no strong foreign policy.” Well, we won’t ever have a strong foreign policy if we base it on weapons systems that don’t work. We have 187 F22s in the air fleet that spend more time in the shop than they do in the air. Congress & Secretary Gates did the fiscally sound thing by declining to buy more of those, The plane is so unairworthy that it has yet to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

As for missile defense, that concept has been around since the early 1980s and still isn’t workable except for the Patriot system.

The F-22 is an air superiority fighter. There aren’t any fighters to go up against in Iraq or Afghanistan so it’d make no sense at all to deploy the F-22 there. When I’m near Langley AFB, VA, I see F-22s flying just about every day. They don’t seem to have too much trouble keeping the planes flying.

One common failure of military planning is “preparing the fight the last war.” Just because the F-22 isn’t needed in Afghanistan or Iraq, it doesn’t mean that it’ll never be needed. There are potential adversaries out there where anything short of an F-22 is going to get a lot of Americans killed.

As for missile defense, you do need to keep up with current events. SM-3s launched from Aegis ships have proven quite successful as recently as last week.

As for Obama’s idiotic foreign policy, snuggling up to dictators while angering our allies is hardly a smart move.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:28 pm 24. Peter the Bubblehead:

17. Cichawoda wrote:
Oh! News of the non-threatening Russia patrols, that have been going on for months, is released by the Pentagon just as the defense spending bill is before Congress? What a co-winky-dink?

Peter writes: And just HOW much do you know about defense policy to decide whether these submarines are threatening or non-threatening? The Russians have not sent a submarine, nuke or not, beyond their home waters since the 1990’s. Russians don’t spend the money it costs to make these ships sea-worthy and capable of long-term deployment unless they are planning on doing something with them.

(As the admiral said in the movie version of ‘The Hunt for Red October’; “Ruskies don’t take a dump without a plan, son.”)

I can guarantee you this is a test of this administration’s resolve, to see if the US would be willing to do anything about Ruskie subs in our backyard. And you can be sure the report of this in the NYT was the DoD’s way of telling Russia that we knew their subs were there all along, probably with a Mk48ADCAP ready to swim at a moment’s notice the whole time. Because this stuff used to happen all the time during the Cold War and the details NEVER made the newspapers.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:40 pm 25. billslayer:

Middleman:Yes, Bush did get played like a fiddle. Obama is getting punked like $5 trick. In drag.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:44 pm 26. Paul M Hupf:

Increaseingly, fears of the Prseident’s naivete in foreign affairs, initially tentative, are now being confirmed. He has an agenda of his own, unrelated to his actual duties as President of the United States. Without any experience, without any articulated plan, he has attempted “dialogue” with foreign leaders who have no love for the United States and who wish its destruction; not only the destruction of the United States but our proven allies as well. He thinks he is being well received, when in fact his “new found friend” has his arm around the President’s neck, his hand in the President’s pocket while at the same thinking up ways to deceive the President all the more. And the President does not for a moment realize he is being treated as a fool.

Aug 5, 2009 - 1:46 pm 27. tanstaafl:

Putin’s riding horses, shirtless, to show off his pecs, and last week, reportedly dove the the bottom of the world’s deepest lake (something like that) and is, apparently, showing off for his 20 something girlfriend (I think that’s besides a wife…)…so ex KGB macho man would be testing the waters (literally) with submarines, no ?

it’s quite clear that (Obama’s) equivocation is being perceived as weakness by Russia and thus as an opportunity to escalate tensions in the hope that Obama will, in fact, sell out not only Eastern Europe but also the Caucasus region and Central Asia, giving Putin a free hand to reestablish the Soviet empire.

All this hoopla around this American President and his, apparent eagerness to praise, bow down to and compliment tyrants and to exalt all dogma that isn’t based in American principles…is getting to be a bit much.

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:04 pm 28. dan:

$45 billion defense budget? Who told you that – the Kremlin?

Besides, when your true forte is spying/corrupting, you can co-opt $250 billion of your enemies’ R&D and then – blamo, a $45 billion budget worth $295 billion.

When you induce your enemies into foreign wars and then cripple them at home by fanning the usual domestic and international political flames, and get a lefty elected (which strategy failed in ‘68 and ‘72) – what does a “defense budget” really measure? Besides, aren’t we gearing up for all counter-insurgency all the time anyway?

Remember: “Russia is never as strong as she looks or as weak as she looks.” A sound Anglo-Saxon maxim. And right now she looks weak.

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:05 pm 29. Barry 0351:

Two Subs? Kursk class no doubt ya know the ones that can stay down “forever” besides the Atlantic coast is an American ASW training area. Our boys in the ASW need some live targets to track.

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:13 pm 30. Ted:

It’s the Russian version of getting a thrill up your leg for Obama.

Schwing!

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:14 pm 31. AThinkingPerson:

Re Now and Then: How long did it take me to think of that? About as long as it took you to comment about MY comment. Do you have a point by the way or is it becoming harder (impossible some would argue) to defend Duh’Bama? Noticed you didn’t offer up any “But Obama is a manly man who will tell Russia where to go!” or even a “But Obama is the USA’s #1 metro-sexual who will no doubt invite Putin over for a few beers and set it him straight!”

Very telling Now and Then. Very telling.

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:18 pm 32. The Shadow:

I think they need to rename this the Zigfeld Follies. I can only imaging what pearls of wisdom are contained in the The Russophobe. Kinda makes you extra glad Zigfeld has no influence on foreign policy

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:20 pm 33. tanstaafl:

(Obama) has an agenda of his own, unrelated to his actual duties as President of the United States.

Bottom line, the fidelity (such as it is) is to a personal ideology, not to the country.

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:34 pm 34. Anonymous:

middleman”The sooner they realize they can’t match us and NEVER have matched us,the better off they’ll be.”

huh?…they had penty of these:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/epicfireworks/3542212906/

“through simpleton stunts like sub and bomber patrols,”

thse “buzzes” of carrier groups and sovereign borders are for passive intelligence gathering.they are gauging and mapping our counter-measures.

Aug 5, 2009 - 2:56 pm 35. steeple:

Shadow, why don’t you enlighten us cretins with the list of President Obama’s foreign policy successes. Make it as long a list as you would like.

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:03 pm 36. George Bruce:

“The sooner they relize they can’t match us and NEVER have matched us, the better off they’ll be.”

I don’t think they are trying to match us. They are trying to intimidate us. Given that Obama’s reflex when threatened is to apologize, it makes sense from their point of view.

“Russia’s military budget: $45 billion – US military budget: $650 billion”

Meaningless. You are comparing Apple Computers to Orange Julius. Those numbers reflect exchange rate differentials and accounting rules rather than actual resources devoted to military purposes. For example, at current exchange rates, the Russians probably spend about $40 for their standard infantry rifle. We probably spend about $400. Is ours ten times better? Does it shoot ten times more bullets? The Russians have more rifles and more men carrying them. The Russians don’t have a lot of the high tech stuff we have, and that makes a big difference. However, the Russians and the Chinese are stealing and copying that technology just as fast as they can.

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:05 pm 37. Anonymous:

Middleman, It seems that Russia is actually winning some diplomatic battles in ME and central Asia muslim countries.

Also I read that she is going to pay back all the URSS old debts before the end of this year, so may-be her infrastructures are still crumbling, but is is on the way to replace them.

I wouldn’t undermind her portential next importance.

Probably she is testing how far she can go with the actual american administration

Putin and Medvedev aren’t naive, they perfectly know how to advance they pawns on a geopolitical chess board, may-be they are the actual cleverest leaders of the nowadays caucasian populations

So, Obama is a pale opponant for them, I wouldn’t count Sarkozy in the cleverest camp too, he is too self absorbed for that

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:10 pm 38. BC:

Eh…this is stuff they use to do all the time, and that we still so. It mostly means that their economy is improving from 3rd world status, or else some extra money was found in a mattress.

It is kind of nice to have a return, however fleeting, to the good old days of dealing with rivals who could stand toe to toe with us, as well as bring their own cool toys to the game (although I imagine their subs aren’t as clean and shiny as they use to be.)

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:23 pm 39. David W. Lincoln:

Moscow is still wedded to the notion that it is the third Rome, and there will be fourth. This is true regardless if the emblem is the double-headed eagle, or the hammer & sickle, or whatever.

Until this notion is proven as false as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, more mischief making will continue to be the most likely response the rest of the world will receive from the Kremlin.

For, we have to take a lot into consideration. True, there isn’t all that much that can match
Tolstoy, Doestoevsky, Pushkin, and the rest of the best of Russian literature, but that is only
part of the story.

As long as the ethics which drives the Kremlin is
at such a variance with what drives the ethics of
other areas, trouble is in the offing. Both for Russia, and for the rest of the world. For the biggest boy on the block is the Kremlin, and as
long as Russia’s Orthodox Church does not rein in
the worst of the Kremlin, a Magna Carta is needed
and it will be insisted upon by what Meir Mousavi
said not so long ago: “power is always inclined to become absolute, and only people’s movements can put a hold on this inclination.”

For, Russians tend to view the Magna Carta as something un-necessary. The church was there to
make sure that the rulers were kept in line.

But, when that did not happen, others had to step
in to do what the church was singularly best suited to do.

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:38 pm 40. Bohemond:

“Well, we won’t ever have a strong foreign policy if we base it on weapons systems that don’t work. We have 187 F22s in the air fleet that spend more time in the shop than they do in the air. Congress & Secretary Gates did the fiscally sound thing by declining to buy more of those, The plane is so unairworthy that it has yet to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan.”

Oh, puh-leez. News flash: *all* fighter aircraft spend more time in the shop than in the air. These things are like F1 racers, not minivans. And, no, they’re not in Iraq or AfPak because *we don’t need them there*. The enemy has a decided lack of aircraft to shoot down, you know. It has zip-point-zilch to do with ‘airworthiness.’

Here’s the stone-cold truth: our curren air superiority fighter, the F-15, is a 35-year-old plane. In 8 years have the airframes will have aged out- unflyable due to metal fatigue. Even today, it can *not* dominate the latest generation of bad guys like the Su-30. Nor will the smaller, less-capable F-35 (when it ever gets here).

American warfighting doctrine is premised on air supremacy. We maintain it by being a generation ahead of the opposition. Obama couldn’t have struck a more deadly blow at American defense had he intended to.

“As for missile defense, that concept has been around since the early 1980s and still isn’t workable except for the Patriot system.”

Poppycock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_SM-3

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:39 pm 41. Marie Claude:

#15 Middleman

“It’s Russia’s own inflated ego and feeling of entitlement to being a superpower that is its own worst enemy. Instead of trying to keep up with the US, or trying to 1-Up us through simpleton stunts like sub and bomber patrols, perhaps they’d be better off spending money on their crumbling infrastructure that’s virtually non-existent as is.”

I wouldn’t be so sure that Russia can be counted with the weak countries : they are winning the diplomatic battles in ME and central Asia muslim countries, and the Nabucco pipe might become under her control too

http://en.rian.ru/papers/20090805/155735475.html

Besides she is going to pay back the old URSS dept to London bankers before the end of this year.

May-be her infrastructures are still crumbling, but she is planning to replace them until 2020

Putin and Medvedev aren’t naive (like Obama), they know how to advance their pawns on the geopolitical chess board.

They are testing Obama administration, and surely conforting their position on their former sphere of influence

I would say that they can be counted among the cleverest leaders in the nowadays caucasian populations, umm, Sarko is far less at their level, too self absorbed in his own image.

“The sooner they relize they can’t match us and NEVER have matched us, the better off they’ll be.”

You need to get a leader that has their qualities, I don’t see that coming soon

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:43 pm 42. Marie Claude:

umm anonymous was me, sorry for the double employ

Aug 5, 2009 - 3:45 pm 43. Mongo:

“It’s unknown whether these subs carried missiles that could strike the U.S., but it’s clear that if they didn’t, the only reason would be that Russia’s creaking, rust-bucket sub strike force can’t currently be mobilized for that purpose.”

It’s strange Kim Zigfeld would find patrols by a “creaking, rust-bucket sub strike force” threatening. If their subs are in such bad shape why should we be worried what the Russians are doing with them? In fact, why should we be worried about what the Russians are doing at all?

Everyone on here who advocates a tough line towards Russia (especially the anonymous Kim Zigfeld) needs to explain why we should be confronting the Russians at a time when we’re caught in an economic recession and fighting two wars in theaters separated by thousands of miles. I would especially like to hear why the US should be defending Georgia, a country with no relevance to American national security.

Aug 5, 2009 - 4:34 pm 44. sclemens:

From the Bully Pulpit to the “Pantywaist” Pulpit in 6 months. Some kind of a record!

Walk softly and carry a feather boa.

Aug 5, 2009 - 4:36 pm 45. misanthopicus:

Regardless Russia’s frailty and our (still existing) military superiority, it is obvious that in Kremlin (and elsewhere) Obama is perceived as a weak & manipulable US president, an executive & a commander whose allegiance are oriented to something different than America’s legitimate interests.

It is not difficult to imagine what lies in Obama’s pshychological composite done for the use of the Russians’ operatives: vain, narcissistic, hateful yet yearning to be considered what he hates most (i.e. white rich guys), vacillating, despising the Western civilization which nurtured him and (unfortunately) gave him the vacuum in which he raised to power, allegiance and interests for an unrealistic form of internationalism; since incompetent, entirely dependent on outside counsel, conditioned by flattery… you can add much more here.

Yup – Suetonius, Procopius or Saint-Simon would have more harsh words about our community organizer president.

With such a psychological composite in hand, no wonder the Chinese and the Kremlin push their agendae fearlessly – after all, what would be the likely American response for an eventual grave transgression? Aplogies and promises of atonmement for who knows what – it’s on the wall, we’ll see this sooner than later –

Aug 5, 2009 - 4:43 pm 46. The Shadow:

steeple – I only argue with people who are rational otherwise it is a waste of my time. I think that those who are irrational like the birthers should be given as much publicity as possible so the light shines on their irrationality.

Aug 5, 2009 - 5:14 pm 47. The Shadow:

Now and Then – Leave Dopey person alone. Everyone knows that he can’t think for himself. We should not make fun of him

Aug 5, 2009 - 5:18 pm 48. narciso:

Russia is in demographic freefall, with Islamic elements on it’s periphery in Chechnya,Dagestan,
Ingushetia, they don’t need to be encouraged about Georgia, this week, or Ukraine and Azerbaijan next week. The siloviki run the country more directly than Putin, and that includes not only ex KGB but the likes of Gen. Shamanov and Nagovitsyn

Aug 5, 2009 - 5:53 pm 49. Will:

It’s the President’s main job to make sure our country is protected,but this man is a wolf in sheeps clothing !!!!!! His entire adgenda is to destroy our America my friends. Wake up now !!!!

Aug 5, 2009 - 6:01 pm 50. George:

The presence of the Russian subs off our Atlantic coast is explained by the “cash for clunkers” program. They are trying to participate.

Aug 5, 2009 - 6:08 pm 51. alex:

The hysterics here are laughable.

Its OK for US warships to patrol the coasts of all nations on earth, but when other nations do the same its somehow escalation of the cold war ?
We believe it was just to invade Iraq, then who are we to decide Russia cannot invade Georgia..? The same reasoning to invade Iraq will be used to invade Georgia, the same reasoning US Navy maps ocean floors on other nations doorsteps will be used to justify Mapping US coastlines. DEAL WITH IT.

This is why America looks foolish to many in the world, our foreign policy is based upon tortured reasoning and suspected hypocrisy.

Aug 5, 2009 - 6:10 pm 52. narciso:

You really are dense, Russia has used the Ossetian pretext back in 1799 and 1921, to subjugate Georgia, and then ignored the issue
afterwards. You really can’t tell the difference
between an American, British or French flagged vessel, and that of the Russian government, a czar in all but title.

Aug 5, 2009 - 6:45 pm 53. progressoverpeace:

Russia ‘Resets’ U.S. Relations … Back to Cold War Era

The button worked exactly as advertised. Remember that the geniuses at State had mistranslated it to ‘overcharged’ (as in, “ready to blow”), so the button took us back to overcharged times. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Aug 5, 2009 - 8:25 pm 54. DavidN:

The difficulty with the idea that these Soviet subs constituting a threat to us is that while the Soviet sub fleet was always something the U.S. Navy would have to deal with in the event of hostilities, our navy always pretty much had them in hand. We could track them easily, because they were very noisy compared with our submarines: to a submarine, being noisy is being seen, and being seen is being attacked. I seriously doubt that in the intervening 17 years these same Soviet boats have gotten quieter. So Putin or his puppet Medvedev send these things out to the mid-Atlantic in a provocative fashion. I’ll guarantee you that as much as anything else, these are intended to poke Obama, and probably have some domestic saber-rattling popularity bump for the ruling party (”We twisted the Yankee’s tail, and he came running to us to ask us to stop!”).

It’ll be interesting to see where Putin and his ilk are going with this. If they’re going to invade Georgia again, with the intention of preventing the opening of this pipeline, or alternatively *owning* the pipeline and by extension the gas pumped through it, then it’ll be interesting, again, to see how Obama reacts, and what we do to stop him. Presumably, most Americans won’t want to go to war over the wrong Georgia. I wonder if anyone remembers the phrase “Die for Danzig?” from the period just prior to World War II? I’ll bet Obama doesn’t…

Aug 6, 2009 - 2:24 am 55. vivo:

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!

1966 movie with Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner.

The Chicken Little’s stirring the pot again, or is it the neocons? They really miss the Cold War.

Aug 6, 2009 - 4:20 am 56. Middleman:

Marie,
How can you saw Russia is on their way to replace their infrastructure when they still don’t even have a decent highway built between their two main cities- Moscow and St Petersburg. The highway has been years in the making and nothing has been created. Russia is behind, and dropping even further, in terms of roads, rail and airports compared to ever other developed nation. Add a declining population and it’s a good bet that within the next 50 years Russia as a nation could very well disintegrate.
I highly doubt Russia will gain any sort of control of the Nabucco line. The European Union has had enough of Gazprom/Russian mafioso tactics with the pipeline and they are wooing the pipeline states with special EU status.
As for Central Asia, Russia dumped a bunch of money into Kyrgyzstan to basically expel the US, but in the end we just paid more rent and the airbase was renamed to a transit center. Some ‘victory’ for Russia.

Aug 6, 2009 - 6:39 am 57. Bear:

Neocons? The cold war never ended. It just took a media induced hiatus. The Neosocialists will never get their new world order, because resource driven geopolitics will always drive (nationalistic) behavior. Until perhaps the next world war, when world population gets closer to the neosocialist goal.

Aug 6, 2009 - 7:31 am 58. Anonymous:

Middleman, highways weren’t their first worry as roads get frozen in wintertimes,therefore the bitumen is broken at the end of it ; like in your country, Russians use planes.

For the rest, if you read papers, they are are buying drones from Israel, carrier ships, helicopters, from us, and different arms from the other Nato countries. They still sell theirs, and planes, to different muslim countries.

If you read the above link I provided, they are trying to get Turkey in their sphere of influence (Turkey is the key country for Nabucco)

Also a St Petersburg enterprise bought a local enterprise in my city a few years ago, saving it from collapsing. I can tell you that the persons who come regularly to make audits are not underdevelopped persons, but quite at the top and aware of the marketing and businesses.

We still hav the clichés of the drunk “boyard”, but it’s changing, may-be slowly,though the young generation will make it.

Aug 6, 2009 - 7:42 am 59. Anonymous:

uh, I forgot to register my name, could you update my comment ? thanks

Aug 6, 2009 - 7:43 am 60. Middleman:

Marie,
Turkey is both a NATO member and possibly becoming an EU member. Russia can’t offer Turkey a thing to woo them away from that. Particularly when they can reap the benefits of the Nabucco pipeline without Russian interference.
In a nation the size of Russia, infrastructure such as rail and highways is extremely important to maintaining national integrity. It cannot be written off. As long as it does not exist, Russia will continue to hit an economic ceiling and remain authoritarian.

Aug 6, 2009 - 8:37 am 61. Marie Claude:

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/86186/turkish-russian-joint-economic-commission-meeting-held-in-ankara.html

see if Turkey and Russia haven’t a common goal

Aug 6, 2009 - 4:19 pm 62. Marie Claude:

http://www.turkishweekly.net/columnist/3173/nabucco-the-‘project-of-the-century’-and-its-value-ii-.html

and they are not against an iranian participation in Nabucco

Aug 6, 2009 - 4:20 pm 63. Marie Claude:

seems that our voice doesn’t count

http://tinyurl.com/l8skjd

Aug 6, 2009 - 4:33 pm 64. Highlander:

Who the hell writes that crap?!?!
.
Anyone with have a cent of knowledge KNOWS that IT IS THE =INTERNATIONAL= BANKERS who get nations to pull this crap in order to generate fear, motivate an INCREASE IN TAXES to facilitate spending, and in the end cause war.
.
ONLY THE BANKERS win when either there is a build-up to a war, or when there is a war itself.
.
SEE THIS, YOU FOOLS:
.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/813216/E-C-Knuth-The-Empire-of-The-City?query2=the%20empire%20of%20%22the%20city%22

Aug 6, 2009 - 5:12 pm 65. SusanL:

Putin 4 – Obama 0

This count will only increase on Putin’s side.

Obama has shown no desire to protect this nation. He will find some way to apologise for the subs being there. Some how, it will be our fault.

I am beyond tired of the apologist-in-chief.

Aug 6, 2009 - 5:51 pm 66. David W. Lincoln:

Whoops, my mistake. Moscow needs to be weaned off the notion that it is the third Rome, and there will not be a fourth Rome. All the rest of the comment stays.

Aug 6, 2009 - 8:14 pm 67. David W. Lincoln:

Leave it to the obtuseness of some posters here. If it did not take place in the United States, then it did not take place.

Would you be so cavalier if American media figures wound up dead because they uncovered some dirty laundry on political figures?

That goes much further than naval patrols as to why so many people outside the United States view the United States as frankly not worth the trouble it stirs up. For, even though too many
have relied on the United states for protection from the likes of the Soviet Union, or what have you, it is the blind eye and the deaf ear being applied by the US to the mistakes of the past which cause the rolling of the eyes.

Well, don’t say that you weren’t warned. You were. You were just too pre-occupied to see matters from other perspectives, and frankly at least one of those perspectives is more honest than the perspective which has the greatest dominance in the United States.

Aug 6, 2009 - 8:22 pm 68. Marie Claude:

David W. Lincoln

which ol “complainte” (lament) are you referring to ?

Aug 7, 2009 - 4:22 am 69. kabud:

Must add:

communist russian rulers killed over 100 million people in the 20th century

their dearest ally China had another 100 millions killed

We know for a fact that kremlin planes to genealogically destroy everyone who lives on USA territory

and some other nations that they know will never submit to their WORLD RULE
as the pursue

They killed humans by tens of millions, which we kinda forgot

They have more nukes then we do

They have 100s tons of biological weapons and binary chemical weapons

WE- DONT!

At any minute now we all are at risk to die from the attack of united forces of kremlin and Beijing

People who killed so many of their own and other nations who hate Americans just because we present an alternative to their slaves

They will attack USA , guaranteed,

like the destroyed two biggest building in my town, commonly known as Twin Towers

By the way, as far as kremlin military doctrine goes:

OBAMA, PELOSI, BAIDEN, Senate, Congress-

they will die first from the decapitating strike on our line of command

Well, Obama and Baiden may foolishly think that they will be `warned` by their socialist friends in kremlin and have a chance to hide in the bunkers,

haha:

Not happening. Ever. read some of the books , become familiar with the real thing

http://books.google.com/books?uid=5652302884137400206

Aug 8, 2009 - 12:05 pm 70. ashis:

this is not the matter of russia and usa.most of the people wants to be in peace and cold war is going to break it.things are not about war between russia and usa because if it happens then none will survive.if usa has strong air and naval support,russia has string land based support and also it has the largest nuke bomb Tsar(50 megaton).so this will form the world into desert.telling about cold war it may be even china which is going to be new super power as prediction says.both countries should keep on peace talking so that the 3rd world war wont come.

Oct 17, 2009 - 12:49 pm

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