Well, now we have a situation where a fellow European nation, a new democracy at that, asked for admission to the “big club”, pledged to put it’s blood on the line in defense of Europe proper (and to actually spend the money to do it). NATO said “Nein”, and now Georgia is probably a province of the reconstituted USSR.

Thank God that two Wold Wars and nearly 100 million dead in pre-nuclear days, taught the Europeans the lesson of the massive danger of entangling alliances better than the US learned after General Washington, then forgot. We followed Washington’s wisdom most of our history, but then plunged into entaglements in the Cold War as we raced to embrace the (anti-communist) thug of the week or “dear friends” in areas we had no vital interest in.

Fortunately the Germans were smarter than the American neocons that wanted a NATO commitment to go to war against Russia over an unstable new country that was in the Russian sphere of interest for 500 years and part of Russia since 1801 – saddled with significant territorial disputes with their breakaway “main nation”.

Luckily the Germans, after two great destructions, and the French after their shame of loss of sovereignity for backing Polish intransigence over Danzig – believe in the danger of overreach and entangling alliances more than America, stuffed with hubris and worship of high tech weapon toys as solutions to diplomacy “send in the B-2s and F-22s to kill Russians!!” , does.

Washington’s words of wisdom were targeted mainly against the French, whom America in Washinton’s era basically owed their existence and defeat of the British at Yorktown, to. Disraeli noted later that nations do not have permanent friends (and obligations to die for such “pals forever”), only permanent interests.

The neocons and even the Clintonistas full of faith in “nation-building”, contemptuous of carefully considered treaties that DO bind us to mutual defense after careful consideration and review by Congress and other treatied allies – now propose a “feel good diplomacy” of exactly such “loyal friends and entanglements” committing the US to intervention and even war if our “dear friends who fought at our side” ever need us.

Such people would have had Americans capitulate to French interests in the XYZ Affair, then decimated in the Napoleonic Wars because we “owed our French friends” who fought at our side..

Same saber-waving people who, contemporarily, want “our special friend” Israel, Georgia, Ukraine, the noble purple-fingered freedom lovers of Iraq and Afghanistan inside NATO – or unilateral guarantees that America will die and bleed treasure for those nations future wars and instabiliies.

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RAH – “We have very little ability to transit troops and armor into Georgia. No access from land or sea. Even air would need permission from Turkey.”

Yep. and add that any US military response would likely have to rely on permission for basing logistics, overflight, and refueling from European countries not keen to get entangled in this. Alas, for the neocons, Europe and European alignment with the USA is still 100X more important strategically to the USA than their “special friend” Israel…

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Russian Bear – “Konyok
Can you explain to me why, 15 years after the fall of communism, the only things that Russia exports are weapons and oil?” Well, probably because after the end of the Soviet Union, Russians had a lot of American advisers to the Yeltsyn’s government on economics and finances.

And Russians woke up 10 years after the fall of communism to find themselves poorer and vastly worse off as the crony capitalist corruption of Yeltsin and his advisors had put most of Russia’s natural resource wealth and media in the hands to the Chechen, Jewish mafias..and in the hands of sharks who became the multibillionaire oligarchs through Jewish financier connections.

Much of Putin’s reign, though by no means free of corruption, was in reclaiming Russia’s wealth from the rapacious swindlers that used bribery and outside money to buy and bribe their way into control of the Russian assets and economy. Putin’s great success against the Mafias and the oligarchs has led Russian citizens to give Russia’s elected government among the highest marks of any major country in “leadership is moving our nation in the right direction.” (54%).
Contrast that with the USA, where only 18% believe America has gone in the right direction in the last 4 years.