The Only Winning Move
In my office's breakroom, CNN is running footage of Russian president Putin comparing the US' missile defense shield plans to the "Cuban missile crisis." The article on CNN.com seems less hyperbolic, but having a former KGB agent in charge of a Russia that's increasingly resembling its former communist self in all but name is scary enough without tossing around the closest we've ever come as a species to setting our clocks back a couple hundred thousand years.
Just in case our leaders are reading the Puppet Show (or if any of you Puppeteers need reminding): the only winning move is not to play.
2 comments:
Excellent points about Putin.
Don't know if I agree with you about the winning move is not to play. Of course we can't engage in a suicidal nuclear war that destroys us all. I don't mean that.
I do think a lot about Hitler WWII, and how in the escalation, Britain tried at one point to avoid "playing" and Hitler percieved it as weakness and pushed ahead.
Putin is already using Russia's vast energy resources as leverage on European economies.
If we back down, and our alies with us, then what?
I understand your point about not playing a suicidal game, but maybe a more appropriate view is "He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight." (Sun Tzu)
It's just, when will it become clear whether or not to go through with the missile site? In hindsight?
I don't know.
I don't necessarily know either. I think mutually assured destruction was a far greater force for peace than many people give it credit for, and the problem with smaller rogue states is that they don't necessarily care about MUD. Putin is a hard guy to read, and it's hard to say for sure what exactly is going on in Russia right now. An author (I can't recall who) once wrote that Russians have a propensity to choose tyrants to govern them. Unfortunately it seems to be proving true again.
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