Did the UN and US push Moscow too far?

Great Debates
1

http://www.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,37459-101000114,00.html

The above is an address to Time Daily news.

My question for you all comes after having read the above article. Has the UN and US stoked a dying flame to create conflict, and thus divert the US from its own problems again?

The cold war was being brought to a wonderful and clean close, and then we had to go and “cause a stir” again? Perhaps minding our own business (the US) would actually have been the best decision on most recent issues. Is Clinton attempting to restore his place in history by slaying a dead dragon, a second time? Or diverting attention away yet again from the homefront?

Talk amongst yourselves and with me, Im now faklempt (sp?).

:slight_smile:

-G

2

Note how Russia has reverted to threats of nuclear armament in the above article as well. They are willing to cross “boundaries” to retain respect, and remain a viable superpower. Is this our fault for not assisting properly or degrading them globally since their attempt to convert?

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  • “faklempt” ???

Frankly, I don’t think anyone pushed Moscow anywhere, they just fell all by themselves.

Kosovo was nothing but bad timing. UN was involved in ex-Yugoslavia long before it became a NATO operation (Ever seen the pictures of white-painted Leopard tanks with UN in big letters ? They fought, too.)

And while we Europeans can handle most ground operations quite nicely, once we figure out who’s in command, we don’t have those nice carriers, let alone stealth planes. (Most European armies were purpose-built to fight Russian tanks in Germany). So when the Serbs decided to test if UN and NATO really would perform airstrikes, USA got seriously involved. Nobody’s fault, couldn’t be helped, really.

So, Russia decides to do a little saber-rattling - but the only thing left to rattle is, you guessed it, their nuclear forces. They can’t just transfer an additional armor division to Poland like in the bad old days. It’s an empty gesture from a country that’s running out of - among other things - ideas.

Sad, but not that scary.

4

Desperate to regain power and “fearing citizens” Russia though is just the kind of place to “up and knock off someone”, just to prove that they can. By getting beat up in Chechnya twice and losing the Afghan wars, they arent looking too good. Thay know they need a PR and morale boost, so they will be looking to lay lumber on someone soon. Thats why desperacy is scary.

-G

5

Guess I misunderstood your first post - I thought the emphasis was on our, (i.e., the West’s) part of the responsibility for Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling. Sorry, second language and all that.

Interesting subject, though!

You’re of course completely right about Russia’s wish to be seen as a superpower again. I just don’t see that happening anytime soon. Frankly, I think those competing for power in Russia are aware of that as well, Shirinovsky (sp?)not included.

Would Putin like to present a nice gift-wrapped military victory to the voters, preferably before the election ? He certainly would. Can he do so ? I don’t think so - perhaps in Czechnya, but where else ?

Perhaps I’m giving more credit than is due, but I think that the people competing for power in Russia right now are bright enough to realize that the current war is a propaganda stunt. It’s like the russian “liberation” of Pristina airport wrote big - nice headlines, but nothing substantial.

Whoever gets elected had better get the victory (no matter how this war ends, you can BET they’ll find a way to call it a victory) parades over and get to work. No need to run costly campaigns once you are elected, is there ? And anyone who can turn the Russian economy just a bit in the right direction will hopefully find himself rewarded at the polls next time. Ok, colour me optimistic.

FWIW, an analyst on the BBC gave another reason for Russia to lower their nuclear threshold: It’s the obvious move to make, if your conventional forces are weaker than your opponent’s. And he’s right - it’s reminiscent of NATO’s cold-war “flexible response”.

Try to put yourself in the place of the Russian military high command: Your buffer zones have been reduced to nothing. A LOT of your neighbors carry a grudge. Said neighbours joined an alliance that didn’t fire in anger for 50 years, but just recently demonstrated how it could turn off a country at will - and it did so in your own back yard. Oh, and your conventional forces have evaporated. I’d bet a beer that you’d tell your staff to try to find a way to make those bloody expensive missiles useful in some way or other. And that’s what Russia did. It’s the logical thing to do.

Nah, I’m not that scared yet. And compared to the bad old days (remember those ?), I’m hardly scared at all.

6

Darn, I forgot: What the h.ll does “faklempt” mean ???

Norman

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Spiny Norman:

Unless I am mistaken, “faklempt” is a misspelling of “verklempt.”

You’re welcome. No charge.

8

You’re quite right, kaylasdad. Good to see there are some Mike Myers (or is that Linda Richman?) fans here.

And, G-M: I think the word you meant to use was ‘desperation’, not ‘desperacy’.

9

Ha.

Allow me to elaborate. There is a certain era of the American television show “Saturday Night Live” which included actor Mike Meyers in the cast (think Wayne from the “Wayne’s World” movies, and, of course, Austin Powers). One of the recurring characters Meyers created was Mrs. Richman, a (presumably) well-to-do Jewish society widow, who had a coffee-klatsch-type television program (possibly on public-access cable, but please don’t hold me to that). I won’t go into more specifics, as I didn’t see much of the show, but there were at least two guaranteed laugh lines in each sketch. One was when she would become emotionally discombobulated, and describe her feelings of distress with the (again, presumably) Yiddish word verklempt. The other was when she would advise her viewing audience to “Talk among yourselves,” while she regained her composure.

I am not a scholar of the Yiddish dialect. Perhaps a poster who is would be in a position to enlighten us as to the existence of the word.

BTW, Gigoloman, when I characterized the word “faklempt” as a misspelling, I failed to acknowledge the fact that you had in fact not insisted that your spelling was correct. I hope you don’t construe that as “spelling troll” behavior. That said, I would like to question you as to your understanding of the word’s meaning, as my own understanding of it, taken from the context in which I have heard it used, does not exactly lend itself to an understanding of the way in which you used it in your OP.

Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Mark Twain

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Thanks, fellows, especially Kayla - I was beginning to feel just a bit left put, here! Different cultural backgrounds can be a pain.

Norman

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  • make that “a bit left out”. Darn German keyboards!
12

Back to the OP. Now that we (the US) seem to be in a backslide on our political and global “atmosphere”, I ask is it our fault or that of the other involved countries?

I mean are we pushing Cuba to hate us? Are we frocing Russias hand by making them out to be a “non-competitor” in the world now?

Ideas, thoughts?

13

I’m still wondering what “laying lumber on someone” means. And if you can do it in public.

14

To hazard a guess, it sounds like a whimsical euphemism for attacking someone physically; e.g., striking them with a baseball bat. Or, alternatively with the big stick Teddy Roosevelt suggested a soft speaker keep handy.

15

laying lumber is synonymous with “bringing the heat”. Basically meaning, someone is going to get hit extra hard, deservingly or not.

My answer to the OP is this, yes.

Simple, little, different.