Well, duh, Vladimir

vlado isn't my favorite world political figure, but that doesn't mean he can't occasionally hit the nail on the head...

- QUOTATION OF THE DAY -

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations - military force."

- VLADIMIR V. PUTIN, President of Russia, on the U.S.

here's the details...

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.

In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.

Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow’s former sphere of influence.

“The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance,” Mr. Putin said. “We have the right to ask, ‘Against whom is this expansion directed?’ ”

He said the United States had turned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sends monitors to elections in the former Soviet sphere, “into a vulgar instrument of ensuring the foreign policy interests of one country.”

you can be sure that, given the source, even liberals and progressives will be tempted to dismiss such criticism as merely global political posturing... however, it's worth looking at the nuggets of truth in putin's statements... while all of the above ring true in many ways, the most disturbing one is this...

He expressed alarm that an effective antimissile shield over the United States would upset a system of mutual fear that kept the nuclear peace throughout the cold war. “That means the balance will be upset, completely upset,” he said.

with the u.s. resuming nuclear weapons research and development and considering the resumption of underground nuclear testing, the prospect of re-igniting a nuclear arms race is a chilling prospect, particularly given our sharing of nuclear technology with india, pakistan's instability, iran's bid to join the nuclear club, israel's nuclear stockpile, and the ticking middle east time bomb...

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