Missile Defense

I'm a conservative. I don't like to criticize the Bush administration. There is one thing that has troubled me though more so then Iraq, terrorism, Iran, Afghanistan...etc. It is America's/NATO's policies towards Russia.

I feel that we expanded into Russia's back yard too fast. Don't get me wrong. I believe America is a special nation. I believe that we are a super power so that we can do good in the world. I believe that we should be involved in helping former Soviet client states reach their hightest potential as states where freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the potential to better oneself are maximized. But we sometimes need to be pragmatic too. Especially when such a slighly different approach would have created I believe much more long lasting results.

1) Why the hell are we putting up a missile shield near Russia? To stop Iran from nuking something? If you can sneak millions of tons of narcotics accross the U.S. border per year, you can sneak a nuke across. The missile shield does nothing to prevent this. The missile shield does invoke paranoia in Russia. Russia has money now. Russia is letting us know their displeasure by making their military more active. Bad bad bad.

2) We should have been more active in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Here is when we should have been more engaged. Corruption ran rampit, and that allowed for the likes of Putin to sieze power. Both should have been resisted through soft power and foreign assistance to a much greater degree then they were by former administrations.

3) We over played our hand in Georgia and elsewhere. We should have been in Georgia and other places like Estonia and Latvia helping their democracies along. But the Russian Federation should have been there with us all along. We should have cut a democratic Russia a role in the shapping of its former client states on some level. There would have been a lot of distrust and fear, but I think some relationships could have been worked out between Mother Russian and her former slav children. This would have alleved some Russian fears, which in turn would have made anti-wester sentiment in Russia lesson.

4) I think the Georgian conflict was about Israel, tacitly backed by the U.S., making a move to redirect how oil flowed in Russia's sphere of influence. Russia rightfully said "No" to us and occupied the areas where a new pipe line was going to be built. All the other politics was window dressing. We shouldn't have allowed oil interest to get that far along. The Russians are very aware that petro dollars (or more likely Euros in the case) will fuel the Russian economy. Putin didn't want the west redirecting the flow away from Russia and costing the Russian state a precious source of hard currency. This sounds like something America would do to Russia in the cold war (and did do so with the Saudis...causing them to lower oil prices so the Soviets wouldn't get enough cash to live on). The Russian's rightly countered with a cold war type act (invading one of their former client states). Should we have expecting differently?

So with these four mistakes, we are once again brissling at each other. In looking at the young Georgians and Russians fighting, I don't want our soldiers one day killing the sh*t out of a bunch of poor slavs (cause in a conventional war, we would kill the sh*t out of them). This means no disrespect to the Russians, they have some very good military equipment and some very intelligent warfighters. But until the U.S. goes broke, we will be the dominant warfighting culture. Doesn't mean we aren't unbeatable, but if you take on America head on you will get your rear handed to you. Plus why would I want this? I probably have more in common with your average Russian then I do with your average European now a days. Plus I'm sure once Russia got into a conflict with us it would go nuclear and it would be lights out for the western world. Get your football shoulder pads, leather, and mad max car because the apocalypse would be upon us.

So the question is, how do we go from where we are back to friendly relations? Can we go back? More on my thoughts there later. To be honest I'm pretty stumped, as if we back peddle to much we look weak, which will embolden the Russians. But if we don't change course we will end up in some sort of, well maybe not cold war, but definately a cool war.