I think your basic misstep is you are acting like Russia is our equal when they are not. This is the broken remnants of a failed empire threatening to start nuclear holocaust if we don't allow them to feel more important by using force to abuse and absorb their neighbors. In a conventional war Russia does not have the technology to stand toe to toe with NATO and threatening to kill everyone is with nuclear winter is all they really have left. If we are not willing stop the expansion of Russia into other European nations then we should declare mission accomplished disband NATO and leave Europe to defend it self.
Okay.
Compare the Ukraine to Iraq all you want but that entire line of argument is nothing more than BS propaganda spread by Russia's state controlled news papers that have convinced the Russian people there is a threat of US invasion. I assume these are the same brilliant thinkers who believe the US can be broken up by encouraging Texas to secede. I know you can point to some neo-nazies who were involved in the protest but that does not really compare to twice Iraq twice invading its neighbors and using mustard gas on its own people.
Invading isn't an inherently bad action. One of those was Iran, and according to most people making the interventionist arguments, invading Iran is a good thing. The other one, we refused to tell Iraq no when they asked if it was okay to invade a second-rate Arab state for stealing Iraq's oil. The US all but gave Saddam a blank check and then acted shocked when he cashed it.
What will restart the cold war is not the west allowing countries Russia considers subservient to join the modern world but the Russian belief that they can regain their lost glory but threatening world annihilation if they are not allowed to get heir way. The Soviet Union had real power modern Russia has one card which they can't play without ceasing to exist and taking most of the world with them. Appeasing that sort of behavior is an incredible bad idea. Should we let Pakistan and North Korea stating playing nuclear chicken with the rest of the world?
What possible national security interest of ours could those countries threaten? North Korea borders two countries. One of them is a nuclear power and the other so outclasses North Korea in industry and technology and probably population, that if they can't produce their own nukes to stand off North Korea, they deserve to go down. If China is going to let North Korea back them down, all to the good. We should have nuked both countries back to the stone age sixty years ago.
Likewise Pakistan. Somehow, they've had nukes for years and managed to resist the temptation to pass suitcase nukes to their fellow Islamics. Their foreign policy concerns only cross ours because we butt into a part of the world that has never done anyone any good when they did so. Leave Asia to the Asians, and we have nothing to worry about. I have never understood why when the English Channel and Taiwan Strait can stop a so-called superpower, we are supposed to be afraid that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will not.
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
