Comments on: Russia: Lending North Korea a nuclear helping hand

By: dhimwit

dhimwit — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:29:55 +0000

I think Russia is thinking with its bruised ego instead of its brains. It must be gratifying to get back at the Americans, but it’s not in their interests. We might be wise to cool it on admitting every former bit of the old USSR into NATO; it buys us little and irritates Russia much. Besides, what good is a NATO that can be shut down by turning a faucet in Siberia?
Somehow we got to break up the Russia/China club; until that happens our hands are tied. Yak, yak, yak, that’s all we can do right now.

By: Axe

Axe — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:50:27 +0000

I realize there are more serious concerns here, but in a narrower track, and in the abstract, Putin selling North Korea an ineffective (and worthless to the Russians now) weapons system* that is going to survive approximately a tenth of a second into a US strike, and selling it for millions, tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of dollars, just doesn’t bother me that much. Of course, I’m greedy, and Putin’s broke, so as someone that would consider such a sale “clever,” I feel for him.

It seems like Russia’s nature, as a problem, comes in two flavors right now: (1) its greed, which borders on the justifiable, and (2) its nationalism, which is where it started to go dangerously wrong (for Putin). If all this “taking care of established customers” was actually an attempt to balance the scale (rebuild Glorious Russia as a military presence) I’d be with you, Bryan. But it still just looks like opportunism to me, so it never gets beyond mildly annoying.

I think … I think it might be time for a new Russian leader, here around this road’s fork.

*An assumption. I don’t know what technology we’re actually talking about. If it were, as a rather non-sequitur example, poison gas canisters, strike all I just wrote.

By: Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:20:34 +0000

Why President Bush ever thought Putin could be trusted has always been beyond my comprehension.
Putin is ex-KGB> IMHO, he is and always has been de facto against America. He screwed us over Iraq and will screw us again over Iran & North Korea. Nothing new there.

By: Aunt B

Aunt B — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:04:39 +0000

“Russia faces criticism…”

Criticism??? That’s it??? At the very least, start by dumping “Back in the USSR” from G8.

By: honora

honora — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:00:53 +0000

omegaram: I believe Russia is acting out of self-interest (duh) and would go further and suggest there is no cohesive long term plan, but more of an opportunistic approach to building political and economic relations based on immediate gains. The Chinese, on the other hand, I suspect are very deliberate in trying to hamstring the US. One woman’s opinion….

januarius: George Will had an interesting POV on this yesterday–learn to live with it (N.K); this in part is derived from the fact there are no good options, just a choice among bad ones, and in part from our natural disinclination to launch a second war that would gravely endanger our S.K allies at a time when we are stretched pretty thin militarily. I don’t always agree with Will, don’t know if I agree with this frankly, but it took some balls to lay this out there.

By: januarius

januarius — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:02:41 +0000

There is a front page story on Iran this morning in the Washington Times with a Bush administration threat of serious “action” by the Security Council if Iran breaks the deadline.

What moron still believes in this threat? Does anyone still believe Russia and China will back the U.S. in the U.N. on anything? Certainly North Korea and Iran don’t.

The Bush administration has been great with missile defense, funding our military, and taking Saddam out of power. However, this reliance on the U.N. and making threats with no backup is appeasement.

They threatened North Korea with serious action if they launched ONE missile. They launched FIVE and even South Korea refuses to back sanctions. Result: the same exact policy before North Korea launched the missiles. What does Iran learn from these empty threats?

It is time to give up on the U.N.

By: Global News Blog » Russia - Russia’s bank balances with the Central Bank of Russia slid to RUB …

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 08:58:15 +0000

[...] Russia: Lending North Korea a nuclear helping handHot Air, MD - 10 hours agoIf it weren t for the fact that Russia lent similar help to Iraq shortly before and after the 2003 invasion, I d say that this story is unbelievable. … [...]

By: omegaram

omegaram — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 04:35:50 +0000

I don’t think we have enough information to draw definite conclusions that Russia’s support of hostile foreign powers is not exclusively for their benefit.

The question is whether Russia is also taking actions to deliberately attack or undermine the United States by use of proxies. Is Russia using Iran, North Korea and other hostile foreign powers as proxies or is their support an expression of willfil neglect to the interests to the US and other western powers?

Russia certainly is looking to it’s economic and political benefit with hostile foreign powers with little or no regard for the United States and other western powers. These beneifts take the form of military equipment (such as air defense equipment to Iran) and resistance to any UN action involving those hostile foreign powers.

The question is whether Russia is moving beyond it’s own economic and poltical interests to actively undermine the United States. Is Russia using Iran, North Korea, and others as proxies to actively attack and undermine the interests of the United States? Are they actively moving beyond their own gain to hurt the United States, or are their activities designed solely for their own economic and political benefit without regard to hurting others?

I don’t think we have enough information to come to conclusions whether or not Russia is actively using proxies to undermine the intrests of the United States at this time.

Perhaps some of you bright, insightful Hot Air folks will provide views on this topic.

By: Tuning Spork

Tuning Spork — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 03:48:15 +0000

Putin’s a pussy. He’s more afraid of Kim than he is a friend of him.

What his motive? Money? Yeah. Security? Oh, yeah. My hunch is that he’s not so much conspiring against us than that he is appeasing the madman out of his own leftist Chamberlain-like cowardace. Principled confrontation is not in his blood.

Then again: If you were a ruler, and all you had was @#$% Russia to work with, would you do any different?

F@#$%ng backstabber…

By: B Moe

B Moe — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 02:20:14 +0000

If it weren’t for the fact that Russia lent similar help to Iraq shortly before and after the 2003 invasion, I’d say that this story is unbelievable. Unfortunately, it’s all too believable…

Considering how much it helped Saddam, this might not be such a bad thing. I think they need a good international-type knuckle wacking for being asses, but I wonder how much help they have to offer.

By: gmoonster

gmoonster — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 02:05:16 +0000

Holy Sh*t! Man, things aren’t looking good

By: Defector01

Defector01 — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:10:09 +0000

The Russians are doing two things
One is selling anything not nailed down to the floor to get cash their economy needs
Two, show they’re still a power by opposing the US at every turn on everything

By: Old War Dogs

Old War Dogs — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 23:16:28 +0000

Russia offered to help N. Korea…

LONDON — Russia secretly offered to sell North Korea technology that could help the rogue state protect nuclear stockpiles and safeguard weapons secrets from international scrutiny, but officials backed off after the arms flirtation was publicized. Ru…