Unsurprisingly, it is colored (so to speak) by
memories of US actions in the 1990s and 2000s.
I hadn't realized before how much the American-encouraged attack by
Georgia on Russian-backed South Ossetia in 2008 looks to the Kremlin
like the same playbook as the two American-planned Croat offensives
against the Serb breakaway Krajina republic in Croatia in 1995. The
second American-planned offensive by the Croats, Operation Storm, was the biggest land battle in Europe since 1945.
Ans so just what is the US Government doing in Ukraine? I certainly don't know, but speculation
suggests that it's seen as provocative:
Airstrikes on Moscow can't be part of America's Plan A. It's just not an
option. At present. And nuking Russia down to melted glass isn't even
part of Plan B. Yet. (However, it should be noted, just for the record,
that it's still only the beginning of Spring so that leaves plenty of
time to invade Russia and conquer Moscow before winter sets in. It's
March 22, not June 22.)
But helping the Russian opposition in the same committed, involved, and
even meddling manner as the U.S. once helped the Serbian opposition
should be. Putin already believes the U.S. State Department is backing
the few protest activists left in Moscow—and is punishing the activists
for it.
In other words, nudge nudge, wink wink, the U.S. State Department is
backing the few protest activists left in Moscow. Gessen and Putin seem
to be on the same page when it comes to their understanding of How
These Things Work (they're just not on the same side).
There's really no clearer example of how the elected Administration (
any Administration) isn't the Government. Rather, it's the permanent Civil Service bureaucracy that is the government. There's really no other explanation for why a essentially pacifist liberal Democrat would be provoking the Russian bear is his own back yard.
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