Clarification

I posted last week referencing Ronald Reagan in regards to the Russian conflict with Georgia. I didn't mean to imply that the only possible solution to this problem is a military one. Indeed, Russia is doing a damn fine job of providing the rope to hang themselves with. The U.S. orchestrated the Georgian war to impact the U.S. presidential election? One of the U.S. political parties forced the Russian military to deploy more than a few battalions over the Caucasus Mountains? Seriously? Who let Putin go off his meds?

However, all of this is meaningless without a larger U.S. strategy with regard to Russia. I don't agree with everything in that piece, but it's a damn sight better than anything else I've seen in the media. The emphasis on Reagan wasn't intended to suggest that the only possible solution is a military one, but that we do need to come up with a comprehensive strategy to deal with Russia instead of alternately ignoring until they act up and then freaking out until we can go back to ignoring them again. Russia certainly isn't our friend, but it's a little premature to declare the country our sworn enemy and go back to discussing a Cold War. This isn't 1950, Russia is not the Soviet Union, the SCO is not the Warsaw Pact, and Russia and China certainly were never friends. (Hell, that wasn't even true in 1950.)

While I would've liked to see a bit more active of a response to the whole Georgian thing, it is what it is and what's needed now is levelheaded thinking, not heated rhetoric.