Toronto Sun: Don't ignore Putin's warning

[marmar]

By ERIC MARGOLIS


Vladimir Putin's harsh criticism of U.S. military and foreign policy on February 10 should have set off alarm bells in the West, but apparently did not.

In a startlingly blunt speech at a Munich security conference, Russia's president accused Washington of seeking world domination, undermining the UN and other international institutions, monopolizing world energy resources, destabilizing the Mideast by its bungled occupation of Iraq, and unleashing a new nuclear arms race by planning to deploy anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe.

Russia has long fumed over NATO's advance to its western borders, and Washington's attempts to replace Moscow's influence in Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

This column has long maintained that while one sympathizes with the desire of Eastern European states to take shelter from old foe Russia by joining NATO, pushing the alliance to Russia's doorstep was dangerously provocative and militarily ill-advised.

"He who defends everything," said Frederick the Great, "defends nothing."

The Baltic states are indefensible; Bulgaria and Romania are military liabilities, as Germany found in World War II. Bulgaria and Romania were included into NATO because the U.S. wanted access to their Black Sea air bases as part of its air bridge to the Mideast and Central Asia. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2007/02/25/3664751.html