by FLOYD RUDMIN - Tromsø, Norway."The crisis in Ukraine is serious. At some point soon, reality needs to become the priority. No more name-calling. No more blaming. If there are any adults in the room, they need to stand up. The crisis in Ukraine is going critical, and that is a fact.[UPDATE II :: Saturday, April, 19, 2014] - On Nazis, Jews & Ukraine ‘de-escalation’
"For all of what passes for Western ‘intelligentsia’ carping on Putin as a Stalin remix, the ‘sick Russian bear’ and stupidities of the same ilk, a strategy lesson is evolving. The Kremlin does have a vision, the will and the means to pursue it, perseverance, and a carefully calibrated method. Sun Tzu would approve it. Don’t provoke; wait. Be patient, but not inactive. Accrue your potential. Then retake the initiative. Strike only when the right convergence presents itself. And then the ‘tactician’ on the other side, already blinded because he does not respect you, will be left clueless, wondering what hit him."- Works for me.
[UPDATE :: Thursday, April, 17, 2012] - Kiev: Military operation in Ukraine southeast to go on despite Geneva agreement]
Stephen Cohen: A New Cold War Is Already Underway
“For the first time in my lifetime, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, hot war with Russia is imaginable,” Nation contributing editor Stephen Cohen told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman on Thursday. Cohen, a Russia historian and expert on US-Russia relations, slammed the Obama administration for suggesting that the crisis in Ukraine was exclusively due to “Putin’s meddling,” and warned against a build-up of NATO forces near Russia’s borders. In an effort to end the crisis, Russia, Ukraine, the US and the European Union will begin talks today in Geneva. “Putin will compromise at these negotiations,” Cohen warned, “but he will not back off if confronted militarily.”
—Sam Adler-Bell — The Nation
Here is the complete interview on Democracy Now:
"We Are Not Beginning a New Cold War, We are Well into It": Stephen Cohen on Russia-Ukraine Crisis
As negotiations over the crisis in Ukraine begin in Geneva, tension is rising in the Ukrainian east after security forces killed three pro-Russian protesters, wounded 13 and took 63 captive in the city of Mariupol. Ukrainian officials said the pro-Russian separatists had attempted to storm a military base. The killings came just after the unraveling of a Ukrainian operation to retake government buildings from pro-Russian separatists. Earlier today, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the authorities in Kiev of plunging the country into an "abyss" and refused to rule out sending forces into Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has announced a series of steps to reinforce its presence in eastern Europe. "We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water and more readiness on the land," Rasmussen said. We are joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. "We are not at the beginning of a new Cold War, we are well into it," Cohen says, "which alerts us to the fact 'hot war' is imaginable now. It’s unlikely, but it’s conceivable — and if it’s conceivable, something has to be done about it."
Read the complete interview here.
