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To: Beck_isright
Can you just imagine how mad Russia will get? Imagine bases in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey (more bases) and the Baltic States all because they sided with France. Yup, this is going to be an interesting decade....

On the other hand, Russia may be making a cold calculated decision that France and Germany can do more for Russia economically than anything they will ever get from E. Europe, or even from the US. And there may be some truth to that.

As for military implications, E. Europe is between the rock of Russian neo-imperial revanchism and the hard place of an ambitious new Franco-German pan-europeanism. There is thus a community of interests between Russia and the Franco-German axis on the one hand, and between the US and E. Europe on the other. This goes far toward explaining why it has been the E. European countries that have been so eager to get out front and center in their support for the US.

Just looking at the map, and without reference to force structures, it would look like having E. Europe as our mainland Europe allies, sandwiched in between Russia and the Franco-German axis would not be a very favorable position from a geopolitical and logistical perspective. But stranger things have happened. It is definitely to our long term advantage to not have the Franco-German axis and Russia consolidate into one unified confederation occupying the whole of the European continent (plus Siberia). It is unlikely that such an Orwellian "Eurasia" would remain friendly to us for very long under any circumstances.

63 posted on 02/11/2003 7:26:39 PM PST by Stefan Stackhouse
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To: Stefan Stackhouse
Heck, why don't we put a Joint US/Russian airbase in Russia for training purposes and a large Mechanized warfare training base for joint training with US and Russian forces without the stupid environmental restrictions of the US. Both would pour US dollars into the local economies, and provide needed training to the Russians who will need it if the Chinese ever get frisky. An added bonus is the proximity to the Middle East.
86 posted on 02/11/2003 9:37:20 PM PST by Tailback
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