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How Bill Clinton Accidentally Started Another Cold War
https://www.theamericanconservative.com ^ | Dave Majumdar | OCTOBER 18, 2017

Posted on 02/22/2022 7:21:47 PM PST by Beowulf9

Who bears responsibility for the current tensions between America and Russia? There are many answers to that question but blame is overdue to President Bill Clinton who in 1994 sealed the fate of any potential U.S.-Russia partnership when he made the decision to expand the NATO alliance into Moscow’s former sphere of influence. That set the stage for a renewed great power struggle in Europe against a revanchist Russia, just as legendary diplomat George F. Kennan repeatedly warned the Clinton administration that it would

(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: billclinton; bloggers; coldwar; nato; notaccidentally; russia; ukraine
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“Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era,” Kennan wrote on February 5, 1997 in a New York Timesop-ed. “Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”
1 posted on 02/22/2022 7:21:47 PM PST by Beowulf9
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To: Beowulf9

I have new-found respect for Kennan!

Whole brief article:

https://www.netwargamingitalia.net/forum/resources/george-f-kennan-a-fateful-error.35/


2 posted on 02/22/2022 7:27:36 PM PST by jjotto ( Blessed are You LORD, who crushes enemies and subdues the wicked.)
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To: Beowulf9

“Accident”, my ass.

This is the fruit of the long game for those who set it up.


3 posted on 02/22/2022 7:28:05 PM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Beowulf9

Yep, the Balkans is where it all got effed up.


4 posted on 02/22/2022 7:28:46 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Beowulf9

I read that as Bill Clinton started another cold sore.


5 posted on 02/22/2022 7:31:15 PM PST by LukeL
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To: Beowulf9

Bubba’s not going anywhere.

Strobe Talbot. Don’t let that SOB anywherapparatus. US foreign policy apoaratus.


6 posted on 02/22/2022 7:35:31 PM PST by ameribbean expat (Don't blame others for the road you're on. That's your own asphalt.)
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To: Beowulf9

The part I’ll never forget is Madeleine Albright’s comment, “What’s the point of this great military of yours, if you don’t use it?”


7 posted on 02/22/2022 7:36:47 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Beowulf9

Biden and the western European leaders took power by promising to reduce greenhouse emissions. This winter the strategy landed them with too little fuel to heat their homes. Russia had fuel, which gave them a WHOLE lot of chips at the energy table. Now Putin is calling our bluff on Ukraine, and Ukrainians are paying the price. We won’t do anything. We’ve given Putin all of our cards.

War is off the table. Ask Neville Chamberlain how that works out.


8 posted on 02/22/2022 7:42:48 PM PST by nagant
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To: Beowulf9
IMHO, Bill's blame for cold war 2.0 are from the following:

1. Reducing our military strength too much after the USSR collapsed. You don't have to be for forever war to appreciate peace through strength.

2. Not dropping the hammer on different countries that attacked our embassies during his presidency. Just a 24-hour strike back would have sufficed after the first or second embassy bombing would have done enough to teach them they messed up. By not doing so, we all but told them we wouldn't fight back after a 9/11 style attack. Fighting Muslim nations distracted us from Russia build up.

3. Bill also limited oil drilling and jacked up oil prices, which always favors Russia bigly. It's small wonder Russia later paid him and Hitlery six figures for each oral service --- I mean speech.

9 posted on 02/22/2022 7:49:00 PM PST by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: logi_cal869

My words exactly! Accidents don’t just happen with the Clintons.


10 posted on 02/22/2022 8:03:32 PM PST by TribalPrincess2U
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To: Beowulf9

The US and Russia would have made natural allies again China and Islam. It’s a real shame that never happened.

So instead of the US and Russia vs. China and Islam, we have the US vs. Russia and China. And Islam runs free.

Side note: That’s not to say Russia would not have taken advantage of any alliance with the US. It takes two to tango successfully.


11 posted on 02/22/2022 8:04:40 PM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: ameribbean expat
Might have known Talbot was the idiot behind the blunder. He wrote a book trying to explain about the Reagan victory at Reykjavik. He completely failed to understand that it was a turning point in the Cold War. He tried to make it look like an ill considered risky gamble.

It figures he would stupidly urge Clinton to bully and humiliate the Russians at Prstina. I remember that era and it was clear then that there would be payback sooner or later.

12 posted on 02/22/2022 8:08:04 PM PST by hinckley buzzard ( Resist the narrative.)
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To: hinckley buzzard

I remember the conniption fit the Hawks had when they learned Reagan was meeting Gorby at Rejkjavik, they were even calling Reagan “traitor” and “sell out”.


13 posted on 02/22/2022 8:10:08 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Beowulf9

He spent “The Peace Dividend” on hookers and cocaine.


14 posted on 02/22/2022 8:19:24 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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To: Beowulf9

Bombing Belgrade & getting involved in Kosovo didn’t help—-& McCain & Dole were all in—-pushing Clinton…..but Clinton was too quick to announce “the Cold War is over”….& stop paying attention.
How did John McCain sell NAFTA? He said the creation of the European Union was a competitive threat & we needed a North American Union to compete. How stupid was that? The creation of the EU should have been an occasion to rethink the NATO alliance, which was about keeping Germany occupied & Russia at bay. The EU was created to emulate the success of the USA!……a free trade zone within the union, a common currency, labor mobility across state lines, a central bank. Th EU should have provided for its OWN defense, & the Bushes & Clintons should have fought for a free trade & monetary nd military alliance with the new Europan Union..forget about NATO. We should have had treaties with the EU to bury Russian economically, so instead of fighting the west, they joined the west. Our press and politicians have done us wrong……in 2000, we were a few years from paying off the national debt and here were are, 220 years later, falling behind China & with $31 trillion national debt & neither party wants to do anything about it. Thee Bidens & Clintons took all sorts of Russian money & Hillary was begging Americans to invest in Russia. Germany elected an East German chancellor who was too friendly to Putin. Trump was right to threaten NATO. The EU is a joke


15 posted on 02/22/2022 8:36:37 PM PST by Beowulf9
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To: Beowulf9

23 Feb: Daily Mail: Why I blame the arrogant, foolish West: Our response to this crisis in Ukraine has been to react with mistrust and abuse, and with blatant attempts to worsen the situation, writes PETER HITCHENS
I have to endure, often several times a day, listening to people who are normally perfectly sensible and reasonable, raging wildly against Russia and Russians.

Once, I was just like them. I had the normal anti-Russian prejudice of so many Western people.
But, by great fortune, I am not like them now. I lived in Russia, I knew Russians as friends. I learned to distinguish between what was Russian and what was Communist.
And I saw something most people will never see – a pivotal event in history, when we could have changed the world for the better...

Then came the brilliant American diplomat George F. Kennan, a man nobody could accuse of being soft on Communism.
But, unlike so many others, he could tell the new transformed Russia apart from the old USSR.
Kennan had been architect of the USA’s policy of containment of the USSR. He came out of retirement to deplore Bill Clinton’s support for pushing Nato east. I quote his prediction at length because he was so right.
‘I think it is the beginning of a new Cold War,’ said Mr Kennan. ‘I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies.
‘I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.”...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10540829/PETER-HITCHENS-blame-arrogant-foolish-West-Ukraine-crisis.html


16 posted on 02/22/2022 8:41:03 PM PST by MAGAthon
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To: Beowulf9

Kosovo and the bombing of Serbia were where Clinton’s crew went way too far off the rails in our relations with Russia and their Balkan allies that has continued to come back to bite us ever since.

That it got to the point of large-scale bombing just showed the failure of Clinton’s schlickmeister approach to world crises.

And remember, in that conflict we lost a stealth aircraft (highly expensive technology) at a time where only we were capable of stealth and the technology was captured and made available to our adversaries.

The Clintons were elevated to power by the forces that control the Democrat party because of, not in spite of, their deeply flawed characters and corruption.

Everybody in Arkansas knew that.

What we saw with the Jeffrey Epstein operation was nothing new. Someone clean who could not be controlled by his or her vices or otherwise would never be allowed to rise to the top of the Dem party (or the Uniparty, for that matter).

These forces were not interested in bringing the Russian people into the Euro-Atlantic civilization, they were interested in opportunities for their own power and wealth and geo-political position.

And in the Yugoslavia conflict their own agenda with respect to Muslims, seen later in their efforts to bring mass Muslim migration into Europe sufficient to decisively alter demographics, caused an imbalance in the approach to the region and the conflict that sowed the seeds for divisions that continue to have an effect today.


17 posted on 02/22/2022 9:16:12 PM PST by Meet the New Boss
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To: Meet the New Boss

The whole point of Kosovo was to give the Wahabbists a base in Europe to work from.


18 posted on 02/22/2022 9:19:25 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Beowulf9

How does having “tripwires” in places like Albania and Montenegro enhance US or Europe security?

The answer is - it does not. NATO mutual security is a lie, nor was that ever the intention.

Rather, having countries like this in NATO means the USA and its globalist friends have their own agents in the military and security services of all these countries. They are effectively colonies.


19 posted on 02/22/2022 10:48:33 PM PST by PGR88
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To: Beowulf9

It has taken 3 decades of bipartisan foreign policy to make Russia give up on ever being part of Europe and instead definitively throw in their lot with China.


20 posted on 02/22/2022 10:49:42 PM PST by FarCenter
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