Look at their move into Georgia. And now they are saying they are going to mete out punishment because the US and Poland struck a deal on the placement of defensive missiles in the latter country.
Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff told reporters Friday that the agreement exacerbates U.S.-Russian relations that are already tense because of fighting between Georgian and Russian forces. He said the deal “cannot go unpunished.”
And in the strongest threat Russia has issued in reaction to plans to put elements of a missile defense system in former Soviet satellite nations, the Interfax news agency quoted Nogovitsyn as saying Poland was risking attack.
“Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Interfax quoted Nogovitsyn as saying.
This follows on the heels of the US Czech Republic deal to place the radar systems for that missile shield (if it works!) in that former Soviet captive state. If you recall, the US offered the Russians an incredible amount of access to the radar system to assure them that the system was designed to counter an Iranian missile threat and the Russians said "Nyet!".
From a Russian perspective, which historically is a paranoid one, they may be seeing a US attempt to encircle them by placing military systems in Poland, The Czech Republic, Georgia, Khazakstan, and the other former Soviet states in Eurasia. This view however, ignores the fact that these American bases are also directed towards the areas where we perceive the threat to currently reside: Iran and Pakistan. If the US had intentions of striking at Russia, the opportunities were present just after the collapse of their empire, and yet the US took no such action. In fact, US and Western policy has been to draw Russia into the rest of the developed nations world economy and system of politics. Can that policy be called an abject failure? With KGB apparatchick Vladimir Putin in charge, the answer must be "yes".
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