Quote Originally Posted by Roy Karrde View Post
First thing you need to realize is that Obama cares about himself above all else.
total partisan nonsense

That sounds more like Russia was fishing for a excuse to go to war.

That is rather false, Russia has shown itself to go to war when ever it feels like it can gain back a piece of it's previous empire. Georgia in this example. Chechnia in the past. If Russia feels that expansionist tingle again, what is there to stop them?
uh
chechnya is not a counter-example

it also relates to separatists in the caucasus region. the difference that it involves a movement separating from russia (post soviet dissolution), rather than from georgia (while allied to the interests of russia).

there is no reason to think post-soviet territorial disputes are at all comparable to a threat to the rest of europe or the united states.

No steps to stop this process? You mean like threatening to target the missile shield in Europe or saying the START treaty is invalid with the missile shield? funny that sounds like they are trying to take steps to stop the process.
yes, amazing. a bunch of threats which have... not stopped the process. russia is not serious about stopping the process: the process is not stopped. it only sounds like they are trying to stop it.

i cite as evidence the fact that it hasn't stopped. in fact, it has become a practical reality and expanded to its current levels during the obama administration.

You keep saying that Russia wants to have bilateral relations with the EU and that they are working toward Europe, but nothing could be further from the truth. Russia continues to defy the EU by keeping close military relations with Iran, they defy the EU by supplying military arms and even anti terrorist troops to Syria, they routinely threaten to shut off the gas to the EU as a means to create a energy crisis. These are not the acts of a nation that is willing to develop deeper relations with the EU, in fact it looks like a nation looking to regress into it's old Soviet Union ways of us versus the rest of the world.

You mean as their ties with the EU falter, but lets be clear here, by trying to take away the missile shield they are opening up the EU to attack, period, no other way around it.

Edit: By the way, Poland is starting to worry that Obama is selling them down the river
wild stuff.

russia has spent 20 years building towards joining the WTO, but somehow their saber-rattling outweighs their interest in multilateral economic integration. russia relies on the EU for 50% of its trade, and 80% of its oil exports - but no, a few billion in trade with iran is worth destabilizing this system.

no measures are actually being taken by russia to persuade the united states to drawback the existing naval deployment. only threats. threats do not change the existing security deployment, they only act as a reminder to bolster the domestic legitimacy of a rule which relies on russia being perceived as a primary world power.

in the meantime, economic integration continues. european security is necessary for this - russia's "objections" are not serious. a system for such security is in place. it does not go away with today's news. it is unreasonable to argue that anyone in power would actually want it to vanish.