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Feb. 11th, 2007 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stevenehrbarThe correct headline for Putin's remarks was "Putin objects to Russia being ignored as the non-superpower it is."
I mean, we created an allied state in Afghanistan, which Russia still considers its proper sphere of influence. We've supported pro-democracy efforts in Georgia and Ukraine, similar areas Russia considers its to do with as it will. We not only expanded NATO through the Warsaw Pact, we added three former Soviet republics to the alliance. We tossed over the government of Saddam Hussein, thus making the debts his Iraq owed the Russians (mostly for military equipment) unlikely to be repaid. We started building an antimissile system, which reduces the value of the Russian nuclear arsenal. We've put pressure on Iran over its Russian-supplied nuclear facilities. And we've been isolating North Korea as best we can, again weakening Russian influence in the Sea of Japan.
All these activities are treating Russia as no more important than a state of the second rank of influence, like France, instead of an equal superpower that has to be accommodated. But, of course, it all means is that Russia isn't more important than France -- otherwise, the U.S. wouldn't have been in a position to do all those things.
I mean, we created an allied state in Afghanistan, which Russia still considers its proper sphere of influence. We've supported pro-democracy efforts in Georgia and Ukraine, similar areas Russia considers its to do with as it will. We not only expanded NATO through the Warsaw Pact, we added three former Soviet republics to the alliance. We tossed over the government of Saddam Hussein, thus making the debts his Iraq owed the Russians (mostly for military equipment) unlikely to be repaid. We started building an antimissile system, which reduces the value of the Russian nuclear arsenal. We've put pressure on Iran over its Russian-supplied nuclear facilities. And we've been isolating North Korea as best we can, again weakening Russian influence in the Sea of Japan.
All these activities are treating Russia as no more important than a state of the second rank of influence, like France, instead of an equal superpower that has to be accommodated. But, of course, it all means is that Russia isn't more important than France -- otherwise, the U.S. wouldn't have been in a position to do all those things.
