Grab Your Leggings And Headbands

Dig out those Members Only jackets, and crank some Duran Duran. It’s “Back to the 80s” week, all over Europe!

Only not in A fun way:

BODO, Norway — From his command post burrowed deep into a mountain of quartz and slate north of the Arctic Circle, the 54-year-old commander of the Norwegian military’s operations headquarters watches time flowing backward, pushed into reverse by surging Russian military activity redolent of East-West sparring during the Cold War.

“I am what you could call a seasoned Cold Warrior,” the commander, Lt. Gen. Morten Haga Lunde, said, speaking in an underground complex built to withstand a nuclear blast.

Because the Cold War is back in all of its bunkered down, hunkered down glory, in northern and eastern Europe:

Russia has itself fed the scaremongering with bursts of belligerent language, like the recent comment by Moscow’s ambassador to Copenhagen that Danish warships “will be targets for Russia’s nuclear weapons” if Denmark contributes radar to a Europe-based missile defense system planned by NATO. Denmark’s foreign minister, Martin Lidegaard, dismissed the threat as “unacceptable.”

Russia’s muscle-flexing is due in part simply to the fact that the country is spending more on its military and has re-established abilities eroded during the post-Soviet chaos of the 1990s. When Mr. Putin first became president in 2000, Russia spent $9.2 billion on its military, but this has since risen 10 times and will increase again this year despite a slumping economy, hammered by a collapse in the price of oil and also by Western sanctions.

Good thing Pres. Obama hit the “reset” button on US Russia relationships, isn’t it?

Apparently he didn’t know what it was going to reset to.

12 thoughts on “Grab Your Leggings And Headbands

  1. In related news from Business Insider (I hope it was an April Fool’s prank, but…):

    Earlier this week, the Russian president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems outlined two geophysically weak US regions to attack in order to combat NATO´s aggression toward Russia. In his article, Konstantin Sivkov justifies the option of “complete destruction of the enemy” because NATO has been “moving to the borders or Russia.” Sivkov, listed as a “Docter of Military Sciences,” described scenarios that involved dropping a nuclear weapon near Yellowstone´s supervolcano or the San Andreas Fault.

  2. Another massive foreign policy failure by team O!
    A reminder: Obama’s undergrad degree from Columbia is in political science with an emphasis on foreign policy.

  3. Putin seems to actually have developed some sort of strategy regarding Ukraine. It may be feckless but he seems to have a realistic objective and a plan to achieve it.
    That is more than can be said for America’s blundering and fumbling in the invasion’s and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    One can assume that Germany (the key NATO country in this situation) has noted this reckless ineptitude of the US and will go a long way before they allow the US the elbow them into a war with Russia.

  4. Emery, suppose a few tens of thousands of Estonian citizens (but ethnic Russians), put on green berets and stage a coup, and then ask the Russian Federation to annex them. Would this trigger the NATO mutual defense agreement?

  5. Obama has demonstrated his mad negotiating skilz today. Because of the unexpected (by some people) drop in the price of oil, the Iranian sanctions are biting harder than they ever have. Obama has responded by lifting the sanctions in return for promises.
    Once the sanctions are removed, they can’t be reinstated without considerable expenditure of US diplomatic capital. If you think that Obama can reinstate multi-national sanctions, please ask yourself why this is simply not a matter of faith.

  6. “Would this trigger the NATO mutual defense agreement”

    From Korea to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan the U.S. seem to always end up discovering that they have arrived not at the destination they presumed they would but rather behind the strategic eight ball. One would have to guess they would make the same blunders in Ukraine if they chose to escalate the war.

  7. Emery, I remember that during the cold war the common wisdom was that Americans and Russians must never meet on the battlefield. The fear was that it would lead to escalation. I am not sure that it was true then, and I am certain that it will not happen now. Well, I’ll hedge and so that you can’t be sure of anything with this crew. Kerry voted against the 1991 Iraq War (which was successful), and voted in favor of the 2003 Iraq War (which was less than successful). I admit that I have a hard time imaging what thoughts fly through the head of the Current Occupant.

  8. Iran owes Obama so much, the invite into Iraq; its massively increased influence…you’d think they would give him a reach around while they stuff their nuclear program up his ass.

  9. “Remind me again, is Obama Shiite or Sunni?”
    Obama says that he is a Christian.

  10. I see that Obama is flogging straw men again. “The only choice is my Iran plan or war in the Mideast!”
    WaPo editorial:

    THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities — including the Fordow center buried under a mountain — will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-iran-deal-falls-well-short-of-his-own-goals/2015/04/02/7974413c-d95c-11e4-b3f2-607bd612aeac_story.html?postshare=4151428013724869

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