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Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II
Frankly, you are taking too idealistic a view of politics. A is certainly useful, but only if there is at least some chance of turning it into the ideal state of D. Otherwise, in terms of consequences, it is not very different from B.
B, in turn is only very bad if it causes additional unfavorable actions that would otherwise not have been taken. For example, say America asks next to put an "anti-Iran" bomber wing in Poland...
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Strategic bombers are offensive strategic weapons, right? We're putting defensive systems on an independant nation's soil, that has agreed to host it. It truly is nothing Russia has any say in at all. Other than of course their empty threats. In terms of the consquences you speak of, it did cause negative consequences to occur that otherwise would not have occured for Russia. So yes. Indeed Russia screwed the pooch by thinking this way.
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B->C->D is a perfectly plausible policy. It takes skill to play well, but Germany and Japan are actually examples of BCD, and if Iraq works out, it'll be BCD as well. Admittedly Russkies are not historically great at BCD, but if they are shooting for D, well, that attempt is already good, no?
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OK. I see what you mean here. And I agree to an extent. It simply will not be to the same extent that has played out in those situations IMO. The way it's being applied here, with the circumstances that have occured, It's not exaclty the same scenarios being played out. But I will admit, your argument is very compelling. I will need to think about that further.
And in the interests of fairness, I do wish we would ask Russia for direct talks to address some of their concerns. Or Russia would calm the hell down, and request the same of us instead of their stupid rhetoric. In other words go back to where we were before. We were addressing their concerns, but they didn't respect our answers, nor have they shown respect for their neighbor's sovereignty and national interests. If Russia got their troops out of Georgia, and the USA agreed to state to state talks to seriously address Russia's concerns, this whole thing could be rectified. In the same vein, Russia needs to understand as well, that they cannot dictate to the USA, and other
sovereign Eastern European nations whom they can form friendships or alliances with. Or what security agreements we come to mutually. If they come to work from that view...and accept that they do not rule the countries they border anymore, they might actually get somewhere. Otherwise they'll continue down this path and stand to lose more.