[SPasse]

The New Cold War

I hope whomever the next president turns out to be, that I they have vision and conviction to deal with the new, Putin based Russia.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Cold-War-Putins-Russia/dp/0230606121/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204814202&sr= 8-1

Sadly our own military industrial complex will also try to drive us towards that same ritualistic engagement that characterized the last cold war.

We really don’t have the money to “dance that dance” again. And a combined space exploration effort would sure seem to me to be a better use of our potential combined talents & resources.

Alternative energy research is something that the US and the EU should undertake together. The EU getting more and more dependent on Gazprom is a really shortsighted (Stupid) move.

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

I don't take him seriously. As they say in Texas, he's all hat and no cattle. I think he's just a Russian version of your typical egomaniacal populist politician. He's building his own little personal empire based on a wave of nationalism and funded by petro-dollars but the Russian military is not a serious threat, except for their aging stockpile of nuclear weapons that they could never use anyway.

Right now he's playing games flying 50-year-old turbo-prop bombers over American aircraft carriers just for the publicity it gets him. I think it's more for show than anything else.

It will be interesting to see how much independence Dmitry Medvedev has as the new president. In spite of the fact that he's Putin's handpicked successor, he seems like a well qualified person for the job compared with the likes of Boris Yeltsin or any of the communists who preceded Mikhail Gorbachev.

We can't lose sight of the fact that the policies of our present government over the past seven years have not been helpful in maintaining stable international relations. We have been so tied up in Iraq that we have been unable to exert much influence anywhere else, including North Korea and Iran. The Russians are unhappy with our policies in the Middle East but that can be said for much of the world, including the E.U. Nobody thinks we're doing a great job there. Everybody thinks we're too pro-Israel to the point where we're hindering the peace process. Just look back on our official statements in support of the Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon or our embarrassing predicament when Hamas won the democratic elections that we were demanding.

Right now the Russians are pissed because we recognized Kosovo but I don't think they will intervene militarily on the side of the Serbs. And they're pissed because all of their former satellites want to join NATO. Russia today is more isolated than at any other time in the past 60 years. The only thing they have going for them at the moment is new money thanks to $105/bbl oil. There is an enormous risk factor in the price of oil right now and it's quite possible that oil could fall back to $50/bbl in a matter of months under the right circumstances. That would put a serious damper on Putin's power and influence. Remember Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign theme? It's the economy, stupid. If the Russian economy takes a dive, so will Putin's popularity.

I think Putin has less power than we seem to think. The changes he has made have been possible because he has the support of the majority of the Russian people. The test will be whether he can hold onto power without that popular support. I doubt it. He's more a politician than a dictator.

If I want to worry about another country, I think I would worry about Pakistan more than I would worry about Russia. It is critically important to our national interests that Pakistan remain a democracy and not fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. (I guess I should qualify my comment about "democracy" in Pakistan by saying that it is important that Pakistan move in the direction of democracy. They're not fully democratic right now but the current dictator-in-charge is one of our guys. We have a working relationship with most of the dictators in that part of the world. It's amazing what you can buy with money.)

[SPasse]

Ninong,

I think that Russia is obviously not an immediate military threat.

But down the road, you will get Russia’s national resources “unleashed” by a quasi-free market economy.

Some of what they are doing is just a rebound of Russian “machismo” but I still think that they will move back into the arena of superpowers and that we should plan accordingly.

I also think that we took advantage of their “bad times” in the 1990s to unnecessarily “poke the bear with a stick.

Near term, Pakistan is going to provide for some “interesting times”

Regards,

Scott