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Are we the old USSR, too? Where did I imply this? We didn’t butcher over 80 to 100 million people(God forbid we inject China’s 60 to 100 million). We didn’t place indefinite and totalitarian constraints on our society for the sake of state power. This borders on slander sir.

And how nice of you to notice all the trade we do with China. We have let them steal state and military secrets. Our government has simply handed over sensitive technology on a whim. Our corporations have done the same thing. We have built a huge modern industrial base for them that even we don’t have here at home. This is similar to what we did back in the 1920's when Lenin proclaimed that communism didn’t work and installed state capitalism under the NEP. He opened the borders and the way to investment for a damaged country. And we happily obliged him. Had we not, they would have failed and been another piece of history. As it was, we were to busy trying to make money to see the danger we where placing ourselves in. Stalin sure showed us the error of our way, if only we could remember the past.

Secondly, we are not the only ones doing all the trading with Communist China. It so happens the Europeans and especially Russia are there as well. Russia is giving China newer and more modern tools of war(until they can get their own up and running) and technology that they can’t acquire from us. Su-27, Su-30, AWACS related technology, ability to produce components for maintenance purposes of such weapon systems, S-300 missiles, and at the meat of all this is the ballistic missile technology transfer with respect to the DF-31 and especially the DF-41 which is modeled off of Russia’s brand new Ballistic missile the SS-27 a.k.a. the Topol-M. Solid state motor(no liquid propellent), mobile, can travel under the south pole and loop back up and still hit the any part of the U.S. if it is desired. All in all it is simply an offensive weapon, for first strike capability and hiding in case things get a little hot. Not bad for a country that poses no threat to us any longer and one with little or no money. They build 3-4 of these a month since mid 1999 and then gave the technology to the Chinese who have such a loving disposition for us as it is. You do remember the Chinese general who in a round about way threatened the nuking of L.A. over the Taiwanese election and again in 2000 except this time it was inferred the whole west coast. This is not done unless the consent of the communist party has given expressed approval.

So here is China gaining all they can to be a new threat to us. Sooner or later we will have to wake up or face some very bad times if we don’t prep for China alone. Like it or not a new cold war is here and the ChiComs don’t give a damn about you ‘having lived most of my life under the threat of thermonuclear war’. These people play for keeps and they are very patient. And this brings up another fact that will burst your bubble, the last ten years has not seen any reduction in the possibility of a thermonuclear war. Russia’s arsenal is stilled aim at us just as ours are aimed at them in some fashion. We have had three close calls in the 1990's with the Russian’s over a launch mishaps. The most prominent one occurred around 1996 with a Norwegian rocket carrying a satellite that the Russians had been told about previously. As it stood Yeltsin has his finger on the button. Paranoia? Its not here in the U.S., Russia on the other hand is a different story. Russia still has its stock pile of 20,000 to 40,000 nuclear weapons, many of these are undeclared as required under treaty, but cheating has always been legendary there. If we include China, we know they never stopped targeting us. Fancy that, and they just keep adding to that war chest of theirs. To bad we are dismantling our MX Peacekeeper missiles, don’t want to have those as a deterrent.

Then there is Russia’s multi billion dollar modernizing of Yamantau mountain complex for those just incase nuclear wars and is complete with an underground subway tunnel all the way to Moscow. Yet again who is paranoid? We have opened up a base in Georgia that seems to have rattled their cage a little. We also opened up a base in Kyrgyzstan and the Russian’s wasted little time to place one of their own since the end of the cold war which is a mere 25 km from ours. Apparently some where not to happy with us being there, but I thought we were partners on the war on terror, if its just lip service I will then agree.

Then there is the allies. Cuba who currently helped put that self proclaimed Maoist Hugo Chavez into Venezuela. Cuba who along with Chavez support the Marxist group FARC to topple Columbia, they have pushed every way to get Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva elected in Brazil who is now letting the actions of the MST(landless workers movement) slide. O, and the MST has had the support of Castro and the PT party that Lula belongs to. Chavez is allowing Islamic extremists to set up in his country. Then there is China who is getting more heavily involved with Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, the Bahamas. Lets not forget Lybia who has been seen with both Castro and Chavez together, just look around here at FreeRepublic for pictures in the Latin American threads.

Then Lybia’s proclamations that it represents all of the African nation and their plight against colonialism. Lybia works closely with the ANC of South Africa, another communist group and look where that country went, from high and doing well to one of the cesspools of the world. There is also the construction of two submarine bases on the tip of South Africa by the Chinese. Then there is Lybia’s and Cuba’s(this was going on even in the cold war with the Soviet Union’s blessing) connections to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe once know as Rhodesia. Egypt isn’t much of a friend in the last 3 years, actually it has always been playing a two sided game. To think of it, I can only find one country that really is pro American, Uganda. Most of the left over countries side them selves with the allies of Russia(Cuba and Lybia, fancy that) and are either run by dictators or those with some flavor of Marxist/Leninist/Maoist thought. For just being two countries, they certainly have their fingers in the affairs of many other countries. You did leave out the DPRK, Iran, at one time Iraq, and China which is the most powerful country in which the two have reconciled their differences since the Sino-Soviet split. With these others, they further have their fingers in other countries and their affairs.

To say the least this is a very large chunk of land where influence and sympathy side with Russia. Wether its because of arms or because of ideological connections with the communists in Russia who have never been prosecuted, never said their sorry, who look for the day when they can restore their country back to the former years as they often do in that rag Pravda and Izvestia(they are state run by the way) poor out support for the aforementioned countries named above.

the people pushing this stuff risk alienating Russia, fomenting a backlash against the US, and bringing back into existence an America-phobic Russian state.

I hate to break this to you but we took out a real nasty slime ball called Saddam Hussain. Russia has already shown it was slighted by the thought we would even try to take him out. Russia rallied the Germans, French, who intern rallied others and good portions of the respective countries populations that pledge their support with organizations such as the Marxist based ANSWER(the EU doesn’t know which way to pull itself at this point). Africa was outspoken against us, much of Latin America was against us, Canada. Sir, just who exactly here is fomenting a backlash against the U.S.? Are you going to tell me it’s a very obscure group of people who believe various things on Russia because of intelligence, defectors, and actions are going to affect our relationship with them when they have absolutely no one in a position of power who is willing to touch the issues surrounding Russia? Because if it is, that is some amount of power they hold over the world for having no position of power not to mention that this is totally unbelievable. The fact still remains, policy is set by the Executive branch of government and I see no one willing to challenge Russia over most things with the exception of imposing sanctions on some Russia companies for selling arms, and this alone didn’t go over well with the Kremlin. Its obvious no one in this government wants to make waves with them, but with the security of our country at stake, it is becoming increasingly hard. I simply find it hard to believe that those in Russia don’t know and see this as well. Yet they give us little room to maneuver. Don’t touch Iran, they may employ their new policy on using nuclear weapons to resolve the conflicts if you read between the lines. Forget their military exercise in Asia with China(one of largest to date), and forget their military exercise where they simulated bombing the UK and US with nuclear weapons in the last year and forget their nuclear bombing exercises over the Arctic Circle in September of 2001(that was to occur in the same week as 9-11 happened, the President to his credit told them that he wasn’t going to put up with it).

You also don’t have to worry about Russia becoming an America-phobic state, you see it already is. Many who run the government don’t’ like us. The people ever since the late 1990's have become feed up with the system their. The gangsterism, the corruption of officials, very little progress in terms of a free economic and even a free political system has given a very bad taste into the mouths of those who saw America as its savior some 12 years ago. The older ones are resentful, they see no difference with the state now compared to the old days with the exception that at least in the old days most people received handouts. An increasing number wish for the old days. One other thing on this topic, the Russian youth(1999 or earlier) have in the last few years been listening to music that...... the right word that I am looking for is well quite anti-American in its nature in its rock music. The opinion of us by most Russians has been going into the cellar for several years now.

Their hatred risks triggering a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well sir, I have read the above piece and no where do I see any hate, I see a great deal of scrutiny and analyzing of data that I gather you disagree with. I see someone who wants to protect this country from a trend of bad things. Yet despite that very few are even willing to look and investigate the facts. Wether his conclusions are correct or not we will have to see, but being a prudent man that I am, I don’t like to tempt fate and be caught off guard. This is hardly triggering a self fulfilled prophecy at this point, if its going to happen its going to happen because of those who have the power(the control of states, a large military, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon) to make it happen. The people of Europe and America who lived the 1920's and 1930's did tempt fate. They ignored the warnings of growing problems in Germany, the rise of Hitler, Stalin, and Japan. The era of appeasement and the legacy of Neville Chamberlain reigned supreme. In today’s world no one wants to deal with the inconsistencies of Russia’s dealings, her military build up, cutting off outsiders to portions of the interior country, its double standards on treaties, its close relationship with dictatorships that hate our guts, etc. because we find out that she gets mad and we don’t want the rock the apple cart after all we need to conduct business with a corrupt country. The same goes for China. The growing anti-Americanism around the world that we haven’t seen since the bad old days of the Cold War are here again, but the flavor it takes on this time is far more powerful than those of yester years.