[Southack]

"Putin's Russia, already moving decisively back to traditional Czarist authoritarianism, then suffers political defeat in Ukraine, which it considers its natural patrimony. This only compounds and embitters the feeling of alienation from the West in general, and from the United States in particular."

Krauthammer was right in his article until he typed the above sentences.

And in those sentences he goes fatally astray. What Krauthammer has done is fall into the current propaganda trap of the global left-wing news media.

Part of that "trap" is to think that the entire West is united. It is not. The West is at war with itself.

Pause and let that sentence sink in for a moment; the West is at war with itself.

What Krauthammer fails to consider is that it was *not* the U.S. that interfered in the Ukraine's election; it was France and Germany. They interefered in that election for a variety of reasons including installing a leader (Yushchencko) who immediately caused Ukraine's troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. Germany depends upon energy imports through Ukrainian pipelines for 75% of its domestic power. Now after their successful coup has installed Yushchenko in the Ukraine, Germany is no longer held hostage to Russian energy contracts that flowed through the Ukraine's pipelines. Russia's leverage over Germany is now gone.

In the meantime, France is now enticing the Ukraine to join the EU-only military (which excludes the U.S.) to further increase European power (at the expense of Russia).

But while Krauthammer fails to grasp such geopolitics, make no mistake that Vladimir Putin comprehends them.

So to Krauthammer, because of his intellectual blinders, he sees only that narrow perspective of a Cold War that continues on, West versus East.

But to Putin and Bush, the war that rages is against Islamic fundamentalism on the one hand, and that smolders via the new EU-super-state on the other.

It's no accident that France and Germany opposed the Iraq War. It's no accident that they have formed an EU-only military (which is now the main power-broker in Bosnia). It's no accident that they installed their own puppet in the Ukraine, either. Nor is it an accident that they are forming an enlarged EU with a single currency and Constitution.

This is a *classic* European powerplay, a move that is revisited time and again throughout their entire history.

...Next post: Krauthammer and China.

[Southack]

"China in turn is developing relationships with such virulently anti-American rogue states as Iran."

...And China is also developing much larger relationships (financially, politically, socially) with the U.S. (e.g. Wal-Mart), Britain, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Canada, South America, etc.

In other words, China has not yet made its decision on which side it will finally choose.

China is fighting Islamic radicalism in its remote Xinjiang province even as we speak. That's the same enemy being fought by Russia in Chechnya and the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan (a border nation of China's).

So China *shares* a common enemy with the great world Powers of India, Russia, and the U.S. That's hardly a recipe for going to war *against* the U.S. or India, and even Krauthammer manages to see that China is exploring better ties with Russia. Hmmm...

China's newfound prosperity is due to its largest customer: the U.S.

Going to war against the U.S. wound *end* that prosperity.

This is not to say that China will 100% choose our side, but it is to say that China has viable incentives to choose our side.

China is at a cross-roads junction. It might choose to side with the terrorists, or China might choose to side with the U.S.

In the short-term, the smart money says that China will continue to straddle the fence. Some moves will be seen as hostile to the U.S., other moves will be seen to favor the U.S.

China simply hasn't decided to decisively choose one side or the other.

Yet.

[Pagey]

CK BUMP!

[GOP_1900AD]

Old World great powers have been hoping that we would crash and burn ever since 1789. Joke 'em if they can't take a ____!

[GretchenM]

Krauthammer is leading the way as usual. He seems to see around corners.

We need profound men and women who blaze thought trails.

These days, our national security depends on it.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Time to reawaken this thread.

[SunkenCiv]

The bad news is a development more troubling than most observers recognize: signs of the emergence, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet empire, of an anti-American bloc anchored by Great Powers.

The even worse news is, that anti-American bloc has never gone away. The even better news is, it doesn't have much longer, provided the US voters don't do something really stupid in 2008.