#4 AFKANNow | 2008-08-14 23:26
I didn't reply at first because I see several Russia's overlapping for the next several decades. Nukes, of course, tell one and all that defensible limits HAVE been established, and WILL be enforced.
Don't kid yourself - Russia has a way to go in terms of internal corruption, and development of infrastructures. I think the Internet will force transparency, but all of the moral power we had after 911 was wasted. We COULD have moved to demilitarize central Europe, for instance, as standing armies are expensive. THAT would have opened the door to a real peace dividend.
Bob and I will have to disagree concerning Russian military equipment. He saw the rusting hulks, but I remember the games they successfully played with the "phased array radar" at Krasnoyarsk. Many people in Georgia are seeing what happens when the Russian forces use the good stuff - the stuff they don't let in the hands of their client states, or the FCC's.
Above all, our patterns of needless expansion in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, in the guise of NATO, the former Soviet Union, have convinced one and all in Russia that America is trying to conquer them culturally, and economically.
This is Not Going To Happen.
Russia followed their Collapse with a dramatic reorganization along ethnic (Racial!) lines, and see their greatest threat is from Judaism, as well as the Jews.
Thus, we see Putin taking office walking in a Russian Orthodox church, carrying what looked like a large scroll, declaring the spiritual foundation of Russia as being restored under his leadership.
With these spiritual foundations being restored, you can now understand why Putin looked so respectful when he met with the wheelchair bound Solzhenitsyn - he sees the economic and military resources as means to a much greater End than we do.
That is the greatest weapon, the one Stalin called upon when he, with the Patriarch beside him, called for the Russian people to fight for Mother Russia.
The spiritual foundation of Race was being laid, and was provided a firm foundation upon which to grow.
Now, Medvedev can look to how economically devastated Georgia has become, and tell the peoples of the RUSSIAN Federation, "This is what the West has to offer you. Overprice junk you can't afford, and eternal indebtedness to pay for it. Our ideas are better, and our ideals are better."
Note, as a matter of strategy, that the Russian Orthodox Church has resolved its split, and is developing ties with other branches of the Orthodox community.
I see Russia - if Internet access and transparency continue apace - as being not unlike the Old West, in many, many ways.
I do wonder why the White people of Zimbabwe and South Africa don't play "Let's Make A Deal" with Medvedev, and take their agricultural and technical expertise to Krasnodar, and Start Over, on much higher ground.
Oh, and the Best In Class submarines, tanks, artillery, fighters, helicopters, and missiles with nuclear warheads?
They're there to make sure that NO ONE tell Medvedev, and the Russian people, what to do.
No One.
The White Race has just found a safe place to grow, and grow strong, in, with the Guarantor of Peace for the Caucasus today, and the Guarantor of Peace for Europe, tomorrow.