Is Rice correct?, the Russians are digging in a hole?

Question

When the Soviet Union fell apart years ago it was because their communist based economy was in ruins, now it's economy is on the 'free enterprise' system, can't it now economicaly afford to get back the old soviet block countries?

Answer 1

They were in ruins because we forced them into an arms race they couldn't afford and a war against afghanistan that put the final nail in their nations economic coffin.We better make d**n sure we don't fall into the same trap that we sprung on them.I say we get the missile batteries into poland ASAP but until we do fund the c**p out of thier forces so they can hold the eastern border down.

Answer 2

Rice is offbase with that assessment.

Putin is holding all the cards.  The US is bogged down in Iraq and Afganistan and the EU armies of the 15 different nations are not under the control of a single entity.  Thus NATO can do nothing but sit back and watch Russia take back a lot of these provinces.

Not sure why Georgia and Ukraine were offered NATO membership anyway.  We lack the resources to come to their aid (as seen in the last 2 weeks) and it is a given that Russia is going to fight to hold these countries.  Stalin, afterall, was born in Georgia.  The Russians aren't going to hand Georgia to the west on a silver platter.

  

Answer 3

Rice is not correct.

She is always protecting USA interests, she do good job.

Just USA interests seems to be worldwide aggression.



To Conservative werewolf  

"Westernization of Russia", so called "democracy" that brought in Russia in 1991, is just the ways to colonise Russia economically. West needs Russian oil, gas, raw materials and tried to get them using smart way of "Westernization".    Gorbachev and Yeltsin was damned in Russia for this.

Gorbachev have changed his mind about West and have complained not long ago that West broke promises that gave to Gorbachev while he  was destroying USSR step by step.  

Putin and Medvedev try to build strong and independent country. Theirs methods are not so "democratic" as West awaits for. Just let them time, dont bother them by acting in Cold War spirit.

Answer 4

This is what happens when KGB runs the government in Russia. Cold War II. Fortunately they will lose this one again.  After all the efforts Gorbachev and Yeltsin made towards Westernization of Russia, Putin wants to send it back into it's old roots.

Answer 5

Thats quite a stupid position. Rejecting russian friendship when they sought peace and cooperation.

Few years later US is unable to stop them, when they are hostile.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

US has started a proxy war against Russia, Georgian army has bombed breakaway Osetia and slaughtered russian peace keepers and numerous osetian civilians, who were russian citizen.

Russia dared to strike back, and Georgia has lost the war. Now Rice says about consequences, but she can do nothing.

Western European states, that  are key trade partners of Russia are not eager to isolate russians.

Answer 6

What does communism have anything to do with the new Russia? It's just still authoritarianism at the helm.

What does Stalin having been born in Georgia have anything to do with it? The Russian people do not want a return to Stalin and Gulags, and they do not have it now.

Georgia was logical because it was not yet a member of NATO, because Putin never liked their president, and because Georgia was dumb enough to provoke the attack and, not being a part of NATO, expect assistance from the West when such assistance is politically impossible at the moment. There is also a very important East-West oil pipeline running through Georgia, although I am not sure how that plays into this at the moment, as Russia has, with good political sense, keenly avoided any kind of overthrow or major seizure of power.

It is the U.S. and the West who have been digging holes. They have been shaming Russia since the break-up, pulling away all its former countries into NATO, an organization specifically designed to counter Russian influence. They have been building bases just about everywhere where they can around Russia, now using the completely RIDICULOUS excuse of it being to protect Europe from Iran (LOL, right...), and refusing a Russian-offered alternative to install a cooperative air-defense system versus Iranian missiles.

What it comes down to is the U.S. messing and policing the world again, which, while not entirely dishonorable in the case of some of the Soviet States, is purely a move about oil and economics (hence why the U.S. never fights to help African states, or East Asian states that did not have direct connections to the U.S.S.R.), and is purely hypocritical when the U.S. goes to Iraq, is doing a twirl-dance routine in Afghanistan in terms of whose side it's been on over the years, and shamelessly manipulates Latin American governments over the years. Simply, Russia is mad at them and their arrogance, and their darn presence at their footsteps.

What Russia did was wrong, in that it used an excess amount of force to counter Georgia's aggression versus South Ossetia... But this had been boiling for years, and the U.S. should have known it... Instead of creating an atmosphere which fostered a friendly Russia, they instead isolated it and made a most unfriendly one... And now, it has struck out, and there's as much hope of the U.S. doing anything about it as there is for 1$/gallon gas tomorrow.