Cooperate with us, Hillary tells Russia
And this is Clinton the diplomat?
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday challenged Russia to cooperate with the Obama administration and with NATO to ensure European security against new threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks or natural disasters.
Citing a wide array of differences between Washington and Moscow, Clinton called for Russia’s leadership to drop its opposition to a European missile shield and its demands to renegotiate a Cold War-era treaty limiting the deployment of troops and conventional weapons on the continent.
In a speech at France’s Ecole Militaire in Paris, she said Europe should not be divided as it has been in the past and that Russian ambitions to maintain a zone of influence in former Soviet satellites, some of which are now NATO members or aspirants, were obsolete.
Hillary’s either trying it on or else she understands nothing about Russia. Asking Russia to cooperate by dropping its country’s defences? Yeah right, the Russian people would really love Medvedev for that. There’s little doubt that Russia is making alliances, especially with China, which it trusts about as far as it could kick it and the transparent goal is to reduce the U.S. hegemony, which has flow on effects in Europe.
Hannes Adomeit, in “Inside or Outside? Russia’s Policies towards NATO,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik Working Paper, January 1, 2007, 22, quoted Putin as saying:
If Russia were to abstain from an active policy in the CIS or even embark on an unwarranted pause, this would inevitably lead to nothing else but other, more active states resolutely filling this political space.
The west might not like it but look at it from the other side of the border. It has to create a new anschluss with the Ukraine for a start and the presidential election is a good indicator of this pressure – witness Tymoschenko’s pro-Russian noises which she thinks will help along her chances in the election.
Then it is necessary to keep oil prices high, weaken the position in Europe of the former USSR states and also take on NATO by an equal and opposite subversion to that undertaken by NATO itself.
Why wouldn’t Russia do these things? Whom are they representing? The safety of the people of Russia of course, against a ubiquitous foe on their doorstep.
There are three main elements to the Russian psyche at this time – firstly, to restore the prestige of both the nation and the Red Army under another name, secondly, angst over China sweeping across the border in Asia and then fear of America/NATO [same thing in Russian eyes] – there is a genuine fear for the man in the street and more so for the siloviki who run Russia – that the Americans will cross the border and attack the Motherland.
NATO had its chance to bring Russia on board but didn’t want to because NATO is run by Them, particularly in Europe. Wherever NATO goes, it brings not peace but instability and angst. One might almost think they wanted it this way, in the same way that wherever Kissinger went, trouble followed.
In the light of this, Blair’s self-justification today and Clinton’s “cooperation” call show enormous chutzpah but they’re very good at that.
Filed under: Politics & economics
Why should the Russians trust Nato or the EU, it’s not like they went out of their way to help them when the old system collapsed, indeed the EU more resembles the old system that the Russians cast off than the current set up in Russia.
QM has hit the nail on the head – they had their chance while Yeltsin was in power and her husband was President – and they blew it!
More than that, Mr Spider.
Many of the current seniors in the Obama administration were active, some by actual physical presence, in the organised financial collapse of Russia under Yeltsin.
The documented evidence, along with other evidence pertaining to other international financial crimes, was destroyed at 9/11, in a building that collapsed, by magic, since it was not hit by any aircraft, within its own footprint, as if (strangely) by detonation.
These things are not forgotten.