This video is something most Americans thought they would never see – American, British, and French troops peacefully marching through Red Square in Moscow. This event was to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Victory in Europe day. It is truly an amazing sight.
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Wow’s That’s about surreal! Growing up during the Cold War, we just never considered such things.
We just have to remember that the Russians still have an agenda, and they intend on taking advantage of Obama’s naivete to advance it.
I agree, Matt, but wonder if Obama is truly naive or really intentionally purposeful in his constant undermining of the United States.
Probably a little of both.
Interesting thoughts.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, I have been wondering about something? Do you folks think a major thrust of American foreign policy has been an intentional “Keep Russia Weak” policy?
The thought that comes to mind is something you see in prison camp environments in some of the totalitarian parts of the world. You allow the prisoners only enough calories to maintain their weight, but you feed them restricted foods on a diet guaranteed to keep them as low-level anemics who feel too weak to endure the physical rigors of escape. You also limit complex carbohydrate and sugar intake because they are brain food. This guarantees that the prisoners will exist in a constant “woozie” state where mental performance is greatly diminished.
If so, do you think the policy has worked and is continuing to work. Personally, I have no idea.
That’s an interesting thought Charles. I wouldn’t doubt that there are many people in our government who have worked towards keeping Russia weak, especially in the Clinton and Bush Sr. administrations when the cold war was still fresh in everyone’s minds and the threat of terrorism wasn’t front and center. The average citizen in Russia has a higher standard of living now then they did under the USSR, but the Russian military is definitely weaker. Russia has a lot of problems, many of which came about because of their tenure under communism/socialism, so I’m not sure we would even have to actively try to keep Russia weak. Our country was relatively weak for a couple of generations after independence, and we didn’t have all the baggage and corruption that modern Russia has. If Russia can tame the Mafia and learn how to live as free people (both are big ifs)then they may once again become a super power. It is an interesting line of thought.
Thanks Liberty. The reason I asked is because I have always had an interest in that enigmatic place on the globe. To an anthropologist like me, it is fascinating trying to figure out what does and does not make that weird place “”tick.”
One of my reasons for being interested over the years is Jack Matlock. His son and I were close friends and schoolmates a long time ago. They would come home to live for a while in Tennessee and then go off to another overseas assignment. When I was in graduate school at the University of Tennessee in about 1979, I looked at a piece of paper on a bulletin board and noticed that Jack had a speaking engagement that night at the university. You would have thought that several hundred people would have showed up because Jack was already fairly famous by then. However, it was cold in the dead of winter, and just a small handful of people showed up. I was one of them, and we enjoyed a really family around the dinner table atmosphere. Jack was really relaxed and just let go of all sorts of nonclassified information that did not show up on the news.
The thrust of his talk was to explain to us in detail all of the internal dysfunctional factors that were working towards a collapse of the Soviet Union under its own weight. It was a very grim picture for them, and he predicted that the collapse would come in maybe a couple of decades or so. When it did in 1991, I thought back on that night and saw that it had happened pretty much the way Jack had said it would. With people like Jack, our government was on top of it all the time. I feel sure that Ron Reagan and Jack were close friends and that the President knew what we students knew—and a lot more.
I am not sure that I would give full credit to Reagan and Bush for the Soviet collapse because a lot of it was internal, as Jack had related. However, Reagan and Bush sure did make sure those old rubber tires wrapped around the Soviet Union were full of cured concrete before they stumbled off the bridge. That made sure they were held down long enough to make drowning a certainty. For recognizing the need to do that and actually doing it, I give them great credit.
Just in case you do not know about Jack Matlock, here is a URL with some biographical information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_F._Matlock,_Jr.