Posted on 10/14/2009 3:26:59 PM PDT by American Dream 246
Just a little follow-up to Ed’s post earlier, tracking the progress of The One’s global disarmament efforts. Hey — the committee did say that Nobel was aspirational. In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”
What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.” Gulp. If I were in Georgia — or in any other country Russia considers part of its sphere of influence — that formulation would make me pretty anxious…
In the interview, he takes a swipe at the United States and NATO, saying that the alliance “continues to press for the admission of new members to NATO, the military activities of the bloc are intensifying, and U.S. strategic forces are conducting intensive exercises to improve the management of strategic nuclear weapons.” “The military activities of the bloc are intensifying”? After Obama just pulled long-range missile defense out of Poland and the Czech Republic?
The oddest thing about this isn’t Moscow’s willingness to nuke its neighbors — I’ve always taken that as a given, even though none of them could ever conceivably threaten Russia — but the fact that they’re willing to rattle their saber so soon after The One made a major concession to them. Are they trying to make him turn hawkish? Because that’s what’s going to happen, whether he wants it to or not, if foreign policy somehow becomes a key issue in 2012. Why not string him along for a bit and see if they can milk a few more concessions out of him? Who knows? He might be willing to yank eastern European missile defense entirely if they play ball on Iran.
Well, at least we know it can’t get much worse. Or can it?
I guess we should not have dumped our missile shield in Poland.
Keep the Shield, dump Obama.
“We reserve the right to nuke you pre-emptively.”
Of course you do, but its impolite to talk about it.
Reaffirmation of a long standing Cold War policy people.
Common sense dictates that if you are going to launch a massive nuclear strike on another nationa, why would you warn them of such? In a Cold War mindset, using nukes preemptively is a near given.
The pre-emptive strike policy goes back to Clinotn’s time I think - ie it is not new - what is new in that policy is the local war option.
Historical point. Faced with the USSR’s land capabilities for invading Europe during the cold war, the US never denounced a pre-emptive strike policy despite the USSR’s call to do so. Sure, the USSR claimed they would denounce a pre-emptive strike if the US did, and could have turned around and lauched one but the US never denounced one either. In fact the US has always toyed with theater wide/tactical nuclear exchanges idea. Thats kinda why Europe was so anti nuke during the 80s before the curtain fell. They didnt want the US to nuke the ruskies to hell and back in their own their own countries. Anyone remember Carter’s nixing the neutron, the “we won’t cause too much destruction” bomb?
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