Ukraine.

[davidatpreston]

The Russians are having a public march in Moscow today to mark the anniversary of the removal from office in a revolution of the Russian leaning President of Ukraine which occurred not long before elections were due. Russians see the US and EU as responsible for this and disrespecting Russian influence in a country they consider a satellite with lots of Russian speakers and people feeling they belong to Russia. There has been a total mistake in foreign policy analysis in the West. As a person who has been to Russia it was obvious to me what was going to happen and it has and now the issue is whether Putin takes the whole of Ukraine. Russians are tough, intelligent and have a reckless spirit about them, which gives them solidarity and determination and they are united behind Putin who is single decision maker not needing a committee of hundreds to make decisions. So we have one very serious situation and once again the stupid EU in the middle of it.

 

Even Obama has admitted that the 'removal' was a coup, and the vital point is that however ineffective the president was, he was democratically elected.It isn't ust that the Russians 'see' the US and EU as responsible for this - they were, ohn McCain and Victoria Nusome were there on the Maidan ust before the violence.

Ask yourself - if Russia wanted to take Ukraine back, or even the Crimea, why had they done nothing since the 1990s - until they felt they HAD to, as there was the danger of a Ukraine in NATO threatening their entire fleet in Crimea.

They had also ust bailed out the corrupt Ukrainians with another multi-billion aid package, and were virtually giving them free gas and oil - no wonder they see the US as intrusive troublemakers.

Now we have a new defence secy here who is a complete idiot intent on provoking even more with remarks about the Baltics, again Russia has shown no interest in them since 1990 or so, but if remarks like that keep coming and NATO put troops there they probably will feel they have to.

The Ukranians are still shelling their own civilians in Donetsk and the US says nothing - history will judge this episode very badly for the West.

[Davebrad]

Love m or hate em, but the US is the free world's police force.

I remember at a press conference the Archbisiop of Canterbury asked Colin Powell about some occurance and about there territorial ambitions, in fighting in so and so country, to which CP replied quietly " the only land we want is enough to bury our dead ". So as I said love em or hate em but they are the only country able and willing to stand against "the big bully boys".

[davidatpreston]

Love m or hate em, but the US is the free world's police force.

I remember at a press conference the Archbisiop of Canterbury asked Colin Powell about some occurance and about there territorial ambitions, in fighting in so and so country, to which CP replied quietly " the only land we want is enough to bury our dead ". So as I said love em or hate em but they are the only country able and willing to stand against "the big bully boys".

 

 

Wonderful post, except for the problem that the united states ARE the bully boys, and words like 'free world' are meaningless to the civilian victims of drone attacks, the millions suffering US interference in Libya, Iraq, and many other countries - and the civilians you see bombed out of their homes in the east of Ukraine thanks to the war ignited by john McCain and his like.

 

Would you say that Nicaragua were bully boys when Reagan risked impeachment to use illegal arms sales to Iran to fund the Contra right-wing terrorists. Nicaragua - yeah, those massive democratically elected bully boys.

 

Google Salvador Allende, see the US did in murdering another democratically elected bully boy in Chile, and unleashed a regime that murdered and tortured thousands under Pinochet, who as even arrested in the UK.

Go back a bit further and look at Patrice Lumumba, and look at how the US military backed every dictatorship going in South Anerica - Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and many more.

 

Want more - then Google 'countries bombed by the us since WW2'.

 

Your bully boy remarks begin to look very pale, and even when a dictator has been removed (only ever done for the advantage of the US) like Saddam or Gadhafi, then the people of that country always end up significantly worse off, as the people of Ukraine are now. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - millions dead again.

 

Police force - yes, just like the Gestapo were a police force. No thanks.

[For Us All]

We are helping to wreck Russia's economy and along with the reduction in the price of oil Putin is bound to feel a little aggrieved.The natives aren't happy so he is just trying to deflect some criticism away from himself by creating a siege mentality which the Russians are pretty good at.

[Davebrad]

Wonderful post, except for the problem that the united states ARE the bully boys, and words like 'free world' are meaningless to the civilian victims of drone attacks, the millions suffering US interference in Libya, Iraq, and many other countries - and the civilians you see bombed out of their homes in the east of Ukraine thanks to the war ignited by john McCain and his like.

 

Would you say that Nicaragua were bully boys when Reagan risked impeachment to use illegal arms sales to Iran to fund the Contra right-wing terrorists. Nicaragua - yeah, those massive democratically elected bully boys.

 

Google Salvador Allende, see the US did in murdering another democratically elected bully boy in Chile, and unleashed a regime that murdered and tortured thousands under Pinochet, who as even arrested in the UK.

Go back a bit further and look at Patrice Lumumba, and look at how the US military backed every dictatorship going in South Anerica - Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and many more.

 

Want more - then Google 'countries bombed by the us since WW2'.

 

Your bully boy remarks begin to look very pale, and even when a dictator has been removed (only ever done for the advantage of the US) like Saddam or Gadhafi, then the people of that country always end up significantly worse off, as the people of Ukraine are now. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - millions dead again.

 

Police force - yes, just like the Gestapo were a police force. No thanks.

 

when the dictator was removed, and free elections instigated to allow the country to progress that's where the fringe elements come to the fore, and the other free elements oppose them you get infighting, not the fault of the original freedom givers... I know who I would want...

[davidatpreston]

when the dictator was removed, and free elections instigated to allow the country to progress that's where the fringe elements come to the fore, and the other free elements oppose them you get infighting, not the fault of the original freedom givers... I know who I would want...

 

I suppose you are talking about gaddhafi and Saddam, but notice your post has no answer to the democratically elected leaders removed by the US - please stop referring to them as 'freedom givers' it's such a nonsense and sounds like propaganda at its worst.

 

Even if there were a modicum of truth or sense in what you seem to be attempting to say, then don't you think the US has a responsibility to think wha might happen after they wreak havoc, not just say that 'fringe elements come in' - you really don't give a fig about the people with no power, food and at the mercy of gangs on the streets in Libya do you ?

 

It is no use interfering, even if I believe they had good intentions (which I don't) if you unleash hell - and in some cases it will come back to haunt them, as with 9/11 - Osama Bin Laden never had any power or resources until the US armed him and created the Talban to fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. They have just done the same with ISIS in Syria/Iraq and we and people like the Charlie Hebdo people in Paris reap the reward of thei stupidity.

 

So - perhaps you'd like to tell me if you think they are right to overthrow democratically elected leaders ? Also, what you think has been achieved in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanstan and whether the people there are better off ? Also, why no interest by the US when there was genocide in Rwanda, or against Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Couldn't be because there is no oil there, could it ?

[davidatpreston]

We are helping to wreck Russia's economy and along with the reduction in the price of oil Putin is bound to feel a little aggrieved.The natives aren't happy so he is just trying to deflect some criticism away from himself by creating a siege mentality which the Russians are pretty good at.

 

The sanctions are also wrecking the economy of many European countries, from Poland to Spain. Saw lorry loads of food dumped outside govt ofices in Barcelona on the news the other night, wasted and farmers bankrupted - all because the US can tell EUcountries like Spain they must join the sanctions. Greece has refused,good for them. Sanctions hurt ordinary people and will never change governments minds.

 

The oil price was artificially reduced when the US instructed the Saudis to produce as much as possible to lower the price, but we will all suffer eventually as the markets get messed up. Russia will dig in, they will go a bit short - compared to what they suffered in WW2 this is a minor irritation, but the EU countries may end up hating each other even more than hey do now, and it may all well backfire on the US.

[Davebrad]

I suppose you are talking about gaddhafi and Saddam, but notice your post has no answer to the democratically elected leaders removed by the US - please stop referring to them as 'freedom givers' it's such a nonsense and sounds like propaganda at its worst.

 

Even if there were a modicum of truth or sense in what you seem to be attempting to say, then don't you think the US has a responsibility to think wha might happen after they wreak havoc, not just say that 'fringe elements come in' - you really don't give a fig about the people with no power, food and at the mercy of gangs on the streets in Libya do you ?

 

It is no use interfering, even if I believe they had good intentions (which I don't) if you unleash hell - and in some cases it will come back to haunt them, as with 9/11 - Osama Bin Laden never had any power or resources until the US armed him and created the Talban to fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. They have just done the same with ISIS in Syria/Iraq and we and people like the Charlie Hebdo people in Paris reap the reward of thei stupidity.

 

So - perhaps you'd like to tell me if you think they are right to overthrow democratically elected leaders ? Also, what you think has been achieved in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanstan and whether the people there are better off ? Also, why no interest by the US when there was genocide in Rwanda, or against Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Couldn't be because there is no oil there, could it ?

 

can you honestly say the people of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan are any the worst off, after the US intervention? they gave the people the opportunity to have a better life free of their corrupt leaders, what they do with that opportunity is up to them.

As for Bin Laden being armed by the US ok, but if you back freedom fighters when they become free they go there own way. e.g- Tito in Yugoslavia, the US and the allies backed him although he was communist against the greater evil, then took his country to the Russian fold.

I don't know about Rwanda or Zimbabwe but did they ask them for help? we,ve seen that the UN security council needs to vote for any action.

We know that elected leaders can easily turn into dictators if there,s no opposition, can you honestly condemn anyone who see,s this happening and tries to help, rather than stand back and does nothing? better surely to try, be willing to help than ignore there plight, If they had,nt been isolationists in 1933 it might have saved the world from a greater menace to come...

[davidatpreston]

can you honestly say the people of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan are any the worst off, after the US intervention? they gave the people the opportunity to have a better life free of their corrupt leaders, what they do with that opportunity is up to them.

As for Bin Laden being armed by the US ok, but if you back freedom fighters when they become free they go there own way. e.g- Tito in Yugoslavia, the US and the allies backed him although he was communist against the greater evil, then took his country to the Russian fold.

I don't know about Rwanda or Zimbabwe but did they ask them for help? we,ve seen that the UN security council needs to vote for any action.

We know that elected leaders can easily turn into dictators if there,s no opposition, can you honestly condemn anyone who see,s this happening and tries to help, rather than stand back and does nothing? better surely to try, be willing to help than ignore there plight, If they had,nt been isolationists in 1933 it might have saved the world from a greater menace to come...

 

Did you really write that first bit - do you watch the news ever ?

I will leave aside Afghanistan, as it is complex and is really a collection of warring tribes.

 

 

But Iraq -

 

https://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Scientific surveys of Iraqi deaths resulting from the first four years of the Iraq War found that between 151,000 to over one million Iraqis died as a result of conflict during this time. A later study, published in 2011, found that approximately 500,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the conflict since the invasion. Counts of deaths reported in newspapers collated by projects like the Iraq Body Count project found 174,000 Iraqis reported killed between 2003 and 2013, with between 112,000-123,000 of those killed being civilian noncombatants.

 

For troops in the U.S.-led multinational coalition, the death toll is carefully tracked and updated daily, and the names and photographs of those killed in action as well as in accidents have been published widely. A total of 4,491 U.S. service members were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2014

 

 

Libya now is a failed state, and worse for us, it risks falling into isis hands as a base which we could never remove them from as they are holding the civilian population as virtual hostages. Now NATO are talking of sending in ground troops. did you see the 21 Christians beheaded on the beach by ISIS in Libya - they were made to face north, a warning to Europe. THIS is what the US and NATO have done and we will all be at risk now, and the people in that country are suffering like never before.

 

Your post still talks of 'freedom fighters' - Bin Laden was a terrorist whichever side he was on, and your post has no idea about Tito, as Yugoslavia did NOT join the Warsaw Pact and was in effect a neutral country with a socialist government that never came under Soviet influence.

 

Tito was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen, as he kept the Balkans united without any repression and when he died, the US moved in and fermented the break up - today we have a terrorist Muslim enclave called Kosovo that people are leaving in their tens of thousands to go to other EU states and an entity called Bosnia which has 2 separate govenments and tens of thousands died in wars, with Nato cluster bombing Serbian civilians.

 

Tries to help ? Selectively, at best, where it will harm perceived enemies and protest oil interests, or US profits, but not in a humanitarian way - relative to size of country, Cuba did many times more for the anti-Ebola effort in West Africa than the US as there was nothing in it for the yanks.

 

Instead of endless 'freedom fighter' type jargon, why not research some facts and see what motives are really at play.

[Davebrad]

Iraq- Saddam Hussein- was a ****** and brutal dictator who kept his country of Iraq at war almost constantly after assuming power in 1979. At least one million people died due to the machinations of Saddam. After his regime was toppled by the U.S. invasion of 2003, he wound up on a gallows, his life terminated at the end of a hangman's noose.

 

Saddam invaded neighboring Iran in 1980 and waged war for seven years and 11 months, making it the longest conventional war in the 20th Century. Saddam had hoped to take advantage of what he perceived as the chaos of the Iranian revolution to settle border disputes and suppress his own Shi'ite Muslim population. (Iran is predominantly Shi'ite while Hussein was a Sunni Muslim.) The war ended in a stalemate with approximately 500,000 Iraqis and 400,000 Iranians dead. Both sides, major oil producers, suffered economic losses of half-a-trillion dollars. Saddam used poison gas against Iranian troops, an atrocity even Adolf Hitler didn't engage on the battlefields of World War II.

 

Gaddafi- In 1970 Gaddafi seized the private assets of Libya's Italian and Jewish residents, driving them from the country.

 

Since assuming power, Gaddafi has given strong support to a wide variety of terrorist groups and regimes, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Uganda, the Palestine Liberation Organization and its sub-groups, and the Irish Republican Army. Heavily supported by the Soviet Union, he fought an unsuccessful war against Egypt and a disastrous war against Chad and its ally France for control of the northern regions of the country. In an attempt to drive French forces out of the country Gadaffi sent an invasion force into Chad, only to see it annihilated by the poorly armed, minimally trained but highly motivated Chadian army. The survivors fled back to Libya, leaving behind large numbers of vehicles, equipment and weapons.

 

Gaddafi has provoked several incidents with the US, one of which led to an American retaliatory bombing raid on his headquarters in Tripoli on April 15, 1986. Gaddafi escaped with only minor injuries but his infant daughter was killed. In 1988 Libyan intelligence agents exploded a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing over 200 people.

 

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, Gaddafi worked to improve his relationship with the West. In exchange for his help in tracking down Islamic militants his government received concessions from the West, including the easing of various restrictions placed against it due to his terrorism of the 1980s.

 

In 2011, as part of the "Arab Spring", major civil unrest broke out in Libya aimed at removing Gaddafi from power. Gaddafi began a violent and repressive campaign against his own people and a civil war ensued, with Gaddafi forces on one side and rebels--a combination of students, ordinary people and army defectors-with air and logistical support from NATO, on the other. After an eight-month civil war, Gaddafi was captured by rebels in his hometown of Serte and soon afterward he was executed.

 

mad dictators who kill their own people, and nurture terrorists, have to be removed hitler is also a prime example, of what can happen if no action is taken till its too late.

 

isis is a strict ideology, do as I say or I will kill you. They,ve started a holy war, where no body is safe, jews killed in France and Denmark, christians in Eygpt, showing all on video, and as you say they are pointing now at Europe. Do you not think these animals have to be destroyed before they do anymore harm?, I think 6 arab countries are in the coalition to do this. As of now no western troops are on the ground doing this mainly because arabs have a basic hatered of westerners, that's why isis are stirring it up as a holy war, but better fighting them on the middle east than in the US - UK or Europe.

 

Titi was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen? Far from being the great unifier, Tito pursued many policies that eroded unity. In a simplistic, Marxist-Leninist manner, Tito saw nationalism as "bourgeois ideology" and national conflicts as caused by "capitalism." So after the war, with the "bourgeoisie" defeated, he did little to combat nationalism and forge unity. While a common Yugoslav school program was created, cultural exchanges among Yugoslavia's six republics were not intense and with time became rare. No university for all nationalities was created, nor was there a policy of encouraging students to study outside their republics. It was rare for a Croatian professor to teach in Belgrade or a Serbian one in Zagreb. When the media did advocate all-Yugoslav ideas, it was an exception to the rule. This cultural and intellectual autarky of republics helped preserve the traditional nationalisms of various groups.

 

Tito was among the more conservative Yugoslav communists when it came to tolerance of free expression of ideas and artistic creativity. Yet he was interested in attracting famous intellectuals and artists who would support the communist regime and exalt him personally. If they obliged, and in most cases they did, their prewar views and activities, which were often nationalistic, were erased from official memory, and thereafter no one was permitted to criticize them publicly. They became esteemed members of the establishment and adopted a veneer of Marxism-Leninism, but beneath it they continued to propagate nationalism. This was particularly true of historians, linguists, writers, and artists, whose work teemed with national pride, self-pity, and negative stereotypes. And new generations of intellectuals followed their teachers and elders.

 

As time went on, the official concept of Yugoslav unity became more and more emptied of the ethnic, linguistic, and historical traditions common to all Yugoslavia's national groups. By the late 1960s, it was almost completely vacuous. Titoist ideology was dispensed as a substitute, and schoolchildren, students, and soldiers had to learn about workers' self-management and Yugoslavia's foreign policy of nonalignment as values that held the country together. Tito's personality cult was a corollary.

 

Reforms in 1965 dealt centralized planning a decisive blow and stimulated economic development. But because they began to threaten the party's control over the economy they were drastically slowed down, mostly on Tito's initiative. So instead of a modern, integrated Yugoslav market economy, with the movement of capital, goods, and workers from one republic to another, regional interests increasingly asserted themselves. Republics and autonomous provinces began developing their own autarkic economies, duplicating each other's industrial enterprises, and inefficiently employing large foreign credits and loans. Since Tito's main concern was always to prevent any kind of all-Yugoslav opposition to his rule--and modern Yugoslav management and work forces might have become that--he welcomed the disastrous fragmentation.

 

In the early 1970s, Tito removed both the Croatian party leadership, which was nationalist but also liberal-reformist, and the Serbian party leadership, which was antinationalist and liberal-reformist. He had difficulty getting a majority of Serbian communists to support him and, true to form, responded in dictatorial fashion: "I wish to say here that when a party's line, results, and weaknesses are being discussed, then the number of speakers for or against a certain view is not the decisive factor in revolutionary choice and assessment of which path to take and what is to be done."

 

After the purges, Tito advocated reintroduction of party centralism and reinvoked Lenin. Yugoslavia's economic, social, and political life was not sufficiently advanced to resist the dictator, and reforms were discontinued. Still, the society was too Westernized, the communist party too tired and ideologically uncertain, and the ordinary people too sophisticated for the country to be pushed back into the party centralism of the immediate post--World War II years, as some inside the party desired and many outside it feared.

 

Tito's antidemocratic and anti-modernizing measures engendered further fragmentation. The adoption of the 1974 constitution--perhaps the world's longest, and definitely the most complex, cumbersome, and difficult to read--almost turned Yugoslavia into a confederation. From that time until the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1990, the eight locally based communist oligarchies resisted any form of reintegration. This anti-Yugoslavism (including firm opposition to anyone declaring himself to be Yugoslav, rather than Croat, Serb, etc.) became a central tenet of their ideology.

 

After the purges of the early 1970s, Tito surpassed himself in "negative selection."> Docility and sycophancy were almost the only criteria he used for filling state and party leadership positions. In Serbia, for example, he stocked the party leadership with such weak, colorless, and insignificant individuals that it is not surprising Slobodan Milošević met so little opposition to his rise to power in the second half of the 1980's.

 

selective, I don,t agree, but I said the worlds police force what other country has the resources to play this role?, N.Korea postulates and sabre rattles at S.Korea but the US in the back ground stops any further moves.

China,s moves for Taiwan, possibly Russia,s interest in the Ukraine, Estonia, Latavia, Lithuania, I honestly believe that the US presence in the back ground is a major factor.

 

Anyway I don,t think I,m going to change your mind, and I know you wont change mine- so here,s to 3 points off Notts County and a 3rd consecutive clean sheet...

[Heatwave]

Every time the US intervenes outside its own territory, there is a disaster.

 

Does that include 1942 to 1945? If they hadn't intervened then we'd all be eating sauerkraut and sushi.

[davidatpreston]

Does that include 1942 to 1945? If they hadn't intervened then we'd all be eating sauerkraut and sushi.

 

 

We've been here before - and the answer is still the same. They didn't intervene, Hitler in one of his many moments of drug-fuelled madness, decided to declare war on the USA. Check if you don't believe me.

They were nowhere to be seen, apart from some basic supply aid, when needed badly in 1939 and 1940 - just like in WW1, so can we expect them to turn up for the 2021 and 2025 World Cups, as their calendars seem to have a built-in 3 year delay.

Despite Stalin being a monster and evil leader, you can thank the Russians just as much as the US for defeating Nazi Germany.

They didn't intervene, as you quaintly put it, against Japan either, but were rather forced into it by a slight incident called Pearl Harbour.

I think you will find that intervening is what they do when they can ferment trouble and leave a mess in countries where they have not thought out what happens after their 'victory' - unless its Vietnam where they got a ****** nose.

[davidatpreston]

Iraq- Saddam Hussein- was a ****** and brutal dictator who kept his country of Iraq at war almost constantly after assuming power in 1979. At least one million people died due to the machinations of Saddam. After his regime was toppled by the U.S. invasion of 2003, he wound up on a gallows, his life terminated at the end of a hangman's noose...etc...

 

 

Well, I must congratulate you on a complete and well-researched reply, even if I have some issues with it.

I suspect you are right that we won't change each others minds, and also look forward to 3, or at least one, point at Notts County if WW3 hasn't started before the game.

Just a couple of general points though -

 

Must the world have a policeman ? and if you feel the answer is yes, I agree that no other country has the resources, but the CIA and other US agencies are totally corrupt and are not acting as a policeman within laws. The UN was created for this role, but is mocked by the US, and is weak and powerless in many cases.

 

Why would Russia attack the Baltic states now when it has shown no inclination to do so since the early 1990's - similarly China with Taiwan,and perhaps Spain with Gibraltar. That is why the stupid,provocative statement thisweek from our new idiot defence secretary was so dangerous - almost an invite to trouble.

 

Just an honest question- did you copy and paste the Tito stuff from somewhere or write it yourself ?

[Davebrad]

I think you will find that intervening is what they do when they can ferment trouble and leave a mess in countries where they have not thought out what happens after their 'victory' - unless its Vietnam where they got a ****** nose.

 

again a honest reply if the armed forces had been allowed to the job they had been trained for and not shackled by congress and the president there would have been a completely different story and ending. Being hand tied by rules of engagement such as you can,t fire unless you,ve been fired at, and you can only destroy old rusty trucks!!! I tried to find the sorce of the two eg,s read them Friday but can,t find them now,

 

I did download the piece on Tito, I,m not that clever or wise,( hence that's why I support the Vale.)

[Warren]

Even Obama has admitted that the 'removal' was a coup, and the vital point is that however ineffective the president was, he was democratically elected.It isn't ust that the Russians 'see' the US and EU as responsible for this - they were, ohn McCain and Victoria Nusome were there on the Maidan ust before the violence.

Ask yourself - if Russia wanted to take Ukraine back, or even the Crimea, why had they done nothing since the 1990s - until they felt they HAD to, as there was the danger of a Ukraine in NATO threatening their entire fleet in Crimea.

They had also ust bailed out the corrupt Ukrainians with another multi-billion aid package, and were virtually giving them free gas and oil - no wonder they see the US as intrusive troublemakers.

Now we have a new defence secy here who is a complete idiot intent on provoking even more with remarks about the Baltics, again Russia has shown no interest in them since 1990 or so, but if remarks like that keep coming and NATO put troops there they probably will feel they have to.

The Ukranians are still shelling their own civilians in Donetsk and the US says nothing - history will judge this episode very badly for the West.

 

Until the break up of the Soviet Union the Ukraine was clearly under Russian stewardship - so that takes us to the end of the 1980's. In the 1990's Boris was in charge - drunk most of the time, and he was a bit of a Russian teddy bear when sober. After him comes Putin and his mate Med, the lawyer. Putin is ex KGB. If you want to see what the KGB do, visit Vilnius in Lithuania, where the KGB headquarters is now a genocide museum. Putin is ego centric in his own right, but also a trained and ruthless killer and strategic military leader. He is in complete charge and he isn't drunk all the time.

 

I have taken the bus from Tallinn to St Petersburg overnight and crossed the Russia / Estonia border. It is a military secure area right behind this border and if I was in Estonia I would have a sweat on right now. Without NATO this country would be back in the bloc now.

 

It was interesting to see the French in peace negotiations because France and Russia are natural allies and particularly going back to the period before WW1. That is seen in the French building Russian warships, a contract now in abeyance. Maybe they can provide some logic that is acceptable in the situation.