Doesn’t everyone see the logic of this?
DAvidN, Isn’t Russia dying? If a half of the population is HIV positive there is a chance that there won’t be enough people in Russia in the near future to invade Poland. So DavidN, let’s look at that ‘powerful imperial’ Russia again, indeed the biggest country in the world [with 65% of useless permafrost], 80% of Russia’s population live in pure 18 century – try to travel, if you find a road, that is, and you will see real Russians living in Siberia without water,for God’s sake those poor Russians are trying to lease the city of Vladivostok to Chinese for 75 years – how more humiliating can it get? I actually think that Mr. Putin is God sent for the West – he is trying to restore the 18th century Russian ‘empire’ – by brutal force, while China is relentlesly modernizing its economy and expanding politically and economically. Truly priceless to see Russia desintegrating. View from Poland

Doesn’t everyone see the logic of this? After all, we can’t go to war over Poland, especially not while trying to reform health care, do cap and trade, and scale down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Poles simply chose the wrong neighbors, and now they’ll have to live with the consequences. If you’re realistic about it, the Russians are much bigger and powerful, and they can conquer Poland whenever they like. Why fight it?

Now, I am not defending hollus bollus the record of Pilsudski, but at least
he knew full well what Lenin, Iron Feliks, Trotsky and the rest of the early
deformed souls who accepted the hammer & sickle as am emblem, he knew full well what they were capable of.

The choice is this: Putyin, Medvedyev, and those in the successor to the KGB
who had dealings with Zawahiri before Putin became Prime Minister the first
time, they and the entire apparatus have to be removed from their positions
of influence. There are two options: One is to redraw the borders of Russia
so that the Kremlin can no longer use natural resources under its control as
a weapon. The other is to ultimately turn power over to Solidarity.

As for Saakashvili, does he have the blood of journalists on his hands? Plus, why did he make Yushchenko an ally, instead of an enemy. For Viktor
had a massive dose of dioxin that was off the charts, and if not for the professionalism of those who treated him, he would not have survived.

Have American siloviks, ex-CIA men like Paul Goble or James Woolsey talking about separatism in Russia? Here comes Igor Panarin, and instead of being simply laughed at by the Wall Street Journal like last year this year he’s being feted by Tea Partyers in Houston. I haven’t seen any Russian agents with suitcases full of cash outside the Republic of Texas HQ in Pecos County, but my Russian friends have blamed NGOs and otherwise benign looking types for giving cash to convicted terrorists in the Caucases.

So…the danger of escalation is real, and the idea that Russia wants revenge for the collapse of the USSR and therefore the U.S. has the right to pursue policies to destabilize Russia can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Want to hasten the odds of Chavez getting advisors? Then send even more troops and weapons to an equally unstable/fake democrat in Saakashvili. Simply because the latter went to Columbia and speaks smooth English doesn’t make him better than the former.

“Is it me or have others noticed that articles on serious issues of foreign policy are ignored by most PJM readers.”

Absolutely, and too often at PJM — even at the quality Belmont Club forum — discussions devolve into either war porn fantasies or Cold War nostalgia describing all Russians as “Sovs” “KGB” etc. And paid anti-Russia hacks like Zigfeld don’t help. More discussion of who profits and why Soros has taken certain tacks on Eastern Europe would be helpful, rather than just swallowing spoonfuls of rhetoric from each side. Certainly, Russia was not immune from the economic crisis in America, both because of the collapse in oil prices after the artificial speculative run up and because Russia’s central bank ironically ended up buying too many dollar-denominated assets rather than too few. But don’t hold your breath for the Wall Street Journal to ever criticize a foreign government for buying too much U.S. debt. And that shows me how objective these outlets that claim to be fair and pro-democratic around the world truly are.

“Pilsudski saw the viciousness of Lenin, Trotsky, and the rest of the deformed souls who flocked to the hammer & sickle.” And David does seem to have a Pole’s point of view, which is all well and good, except I don’t want old man Bzrezinski making U.S. policy, anymore than I would want Netanyahu or Barak telling Obama what to do either. And at least one Polish marshall did stab the White armies in the back to grab a bigger chunk of Ukraine in 1919-1920, and that along with PL participation in the carve up of Czechoslovakia are all relevant points if there is to be historic reconciliation based on truth, as Solzhenitysn urged in an open letter to Poles.

I am not saying that Russians should fear a repeat of the Time of Troubles aggression or that Poles should fear Russian tanks in Warsaw. Both are silly. But Russians are not paranoid to point out that the oligarchs during the Nineties Time of Troubles had many foreign accomplices, and that there are think tanks and groups like Jamestown that are basically set up to operate anti-Russia and have scarcely changed at all since the 1980s.

If you think that would slide, and the US not be held accountable, for its sloppy research, then you
have much to learn about human nature.