Posted on 11/14/2008 10:06:04 PM PST by FocusNexus
The president-elect is caught between bellicose threats from Moscow and hawks at home.
Russia didn't waste any time in putting President-elect Barack Obama on notice. A day after the election, President Dmitry Medvedev renewed Russian warnings that he would base short-range Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, on the border of Poland, if the U.S. proceeds with plans to base a missile defense system in Europe, with the hardware in Poland and the Czech Republic. And this week, the Kremlin rejected new proposals put forward by the Bush administration to assuage concerns that the system could be used to neutralize Russia's nuclear arsenal.
...Meanwhile, the proposed missile shield has driven an unnecessary wedge between Moscow and much of the rest of Europe.
One of Obama's senior defense advisors is former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, who has criticized the Bush administration for increasing tensions with Russia by backing NATO membership for Poland and Ukraine, on Russia's border. This, and the defense shield, have fueled Russia's fears that the United States means to surround it, spy on it and eliminate its nuclear deterrent. Nunn, among other Democrats, wants Washington and Moscow to negotiate nuclear disarmament, not waste time on a tiff over a missile shield.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
They don't understand that you can only negotiate effectively from strength, not weakness. If the enemy knows you are going to surrender anyway, why should they make any concessions.
Cross reference:
Russia strikes the wrong note with Obama (Russia is “low Priority” for Obama)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2132522/posts
Russian leader Medvedev heading to Cuba, Venezuela
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2132205/posts
Isn’t Nunn a Republican?
Just as England and France's alliances with Poland and Czechoslovakia drove an unnecessary wedge between Germany and its intended victims.
Nunn is a Dem and always has been — he was on a number of bi-partisan commissions with Republicans.
Clearly, the best US strategy is to just roll over, when anyone objects to anything we do, disarm unilaterally and hope our enemies won’t kick us too hard. (/sarc)
I think I was thinking of Hagel.
No he's not. Hawks didn't vote for him, so he doesn't care what they think. Russians didn't vote for him either, and he doesn't care what they do. His priorities are remaking America, and he's not interested in anything the Russians do or the Iranians do or the arabs do except as it distracts from his primary mission which is re-molding America into his image.
which may be why he’s seeking Hillary for SOS. I’ve heard people say “well, she’s better than Richardson or Kerry” but really how? Other than dodging sniper fire in Bosnia, what the hell has she done in that area?
Obama is not concerned with Russia because he
wants to destroy America on his own terms.
It’s strictly a matter of communist envy.
“Other than dodging sniper fire in Bosnia, what the hell has she done in that area?”
..which raises an unfortunately relevant point that the United States is being governed, with few exceptions, by people who are dangerously underqualified to hold leadership positions.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon given the political demographics of our country. My sense is that our country will come under increasing numbers and types of attacks from all of our enemies as the so called leaders of this country pull out all stops to distract and deflect.
Nunn is what used to be called a "defense Democrat" or a "Scoop Jackson Democrat" because they clustered around the late Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson of (iirc) Washington state.
Jackson and Nunn and Louisiana Dem. Sen. Bennett Johnston were the kind of Democrats that our boy Slick Willie was counterfeiting when he called himself a "blue dog" Democrat and joined the Democratic Leadership Conference (a "defense Democrat" caucus), back when he was posturing and lying about where he was politically.
The "defense Democrats" were, in addition, the last of the authentic 40's and 50's liberals, differentiable from the "progressives" (Stalinists, New Leftists, fellow travelers and other Reds) who took over the party in the early 70's "reforms" (coup) that promptly nominated Sen. George McGovern, a radical progressive who had actually been a "Progressive" delegate to the rump convention of 1948 that nominated Henry Wallace for President -- Wallace was Stalin's man, the "Progressives" were Stalin's front, and I had to read about all this many years after McGovern stood for the Presidency, thanks to the conspiratorial reticence of the MSM, which was already well in evidence in the 60's.
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