| Goodbye "We Are the World", Kumbaya and Welcome Back Cold War!
What a contrast in world relations we are seeing with the Olympics on one side and war on the other side. I imagine that the glow of global goodwill is going to be short-lived when the Olympic flame goes out.
I looked for information about Vladimir Putin on the web and I came across a transcript of a speech and an interesting story about building a tunnel between our countries.
I think that Putin's speech back in February 2007 at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy is enlightening to say the least and some of his comments stand in stark contrast to Russia's actions in Georgia in the past week. I've included some of his comments below.
The US played an interesting game of chess with Russia yesterday signing an agreement to place missiles in Poland. It was as if Russia made the move to Georgia, the US made the move to Poland, who moves next? What happens if Russian strikes Poland and takes out the missiles as they are threatening to do? Would Europe care? Does the EU want missiles in Poland? There are a lot of questions in this for me, not the least of which is why doesn't the EU place missiles there if they want them there? Why do we have to do it?
This intent of ours to place our missiles in close proximity to Russia smacks of Cuba on its face. Are we headed to our own Cuban Missile crisis and will we blink this time I wonder. I don't know what else we could do given our stretched military and the limited support that Europe is likely to give when a general European war could ensue.
It makes me wonder what our government believes is at stake that there is such a need to place missiles unless there are indications that Russia's leadership has intentions to recapture everything lost since the wall came down.
I wondered how much the US has spent on Russia to promote democracy and economic reform. I see on one web site that we provided or facilitated a pretty high level of financial support from 1992-1997.
- U.S. Bilateral - $4.9 billion
- World Bank - $9.8 billion (US has 16% of shares)
- IMF - $14.4 billion* (US owns 17.09% of the shares compared to China which is a little under 4%)
The only reason Russia ever quit building their military is that they ran their economy into the ground doing so. Why wouldn't they begin building again now that they have all that oil money?
I can see in the following statement that Putin gave hints that this US missile idea was not something he was willing to go along with. He talks about how we impose our policies on other countries and are overstepping our national borders. In logical terms, he can only have intentions to take actions that place us back within our borders and reduce our influence and thereby expand Russia's influence.
"We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?"
"I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security." V. Putin - Munich 2007
In these next statements, Putin clearly identifies the UN as his sole determiner of the use of force. He makes it uncompromisingly clear that military action should be at the discretion of the UN. I wonder what excuse Putin would use for invading Georgia without UN approval.
In the following quote Putin says that use of force should be used only as often as the death penalty is used. Is his intent to inflict the death penalty on the Georgia Republic?
"The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the UN."
"In connection with this the role of multilateral diplomacy is significantly increasing. The need for principles such as openness, transparency and predictability in politics is uncontested and the use of force should be a really exceptional measure, comparable to using the death penalty in the judicial systems of certain states." V. Putin - Munich 2007
Here Putin repeats his support for the UN's authority in decisions to use force. He repudiates the right of NATO or the EU to decide such things and even chastises the Italian Defense Minister for suggesting that any organization other than the UN should have the authority to authorize the use of force. What a typical politician Putin shown himself to be when he sidestepped the international community to attack and invade Georgia.
"I am convinced that the only mechanism that can make decisions about using military force as a last resort is the Charter of the United Nations. And in connection with this, either I did not understand what our colleague, the Italian Defence Minister, just said or what he said was inexact. In any case, I understood that the use of force can only be legitimate when the decision is taken by NATO, the EU, or the UN. If he really does think so, then we have different points of view. Or I didn't hear correctly. The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the UN. And we do not need to substitute NATO or the EU for the UN. When the UN will truly unite the forces of the international community and can really react to events in various countries, when we will leave behind this disdain for international law, then the situation will be able to change. Otherwise the situation will simply result in a dead end, and the number of serious mistakes will be multiplied. Along with this, it is necessary to make sure that international law have a universal character both in the conception and application of its norms." V. Putin - Munich 2007
In the statement below, Putin indicates that the treaty he and the other leaders are negotiating is being held up by the fact that Russia had armed forces in Georgia and Moldava. He indicates that his army is pulling out of Georgia on an "accelerated schedule". He indicates that he has resolved his problems with Georgia. This policy statement too has been violently reversed in recent days.
"NATO countries openly declared that they will not ratify this treaty, including the provisions on flank restrictions (on deploying a certain number of armed forces in the flank zones), until Russia removed its military bases from Georgia and Moldova. Our army is leaving Georgia, even according to an accelerated schedule. We resolved the problems we had with our Georgian colleagues, as everybody knows. There are still 1,500 servicemen in Moldova that are carrying out peacekeeping operations and protecting warehouses with ammunition left over from Soviet times. We constantly discuss this issue with Mr. Solana and he knows our position. We are ready to further work in this direction." V. Putin - Munich 2007
In light of Putin's recent actions and invasion of Georgia, the fact that he's interested in connecting Russia to the US by a tunnel across the Bering Strait is interesting. I'm not sure that a direct connection is a good idea; although, it is intriguing to think about a train that could go from New York to London. I wonder if we'd start getting a bunch of illegal immigrants from Russia or refuges from Georgia coming through the tunnel.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, the Russian president, is to raise plans for a tunnel to link his country with America when he meets his US counterpart, George W Bush, next Sunday.
The 64-mile tunnel would run under the Bering Strait between Chukotka, in the Russian far east, and Alaska; the cost is estimated at £33 billion.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3646415.ece
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