Retente

It's hard not to think that our "reset" with Russia is little more than an update of "detente" with the Soviet Union.

What makes it hard to justify is that Russia is so much weaker than the Soviet Union. Why do we need to make concessions for better relations? If we are so bent on crushing Russia (as Russia believes) and if we have the power to do so (outside nuclear weapons, we do), why isn't Russia giving us concessions to keep us from finishing the poor buggers off?

I mean, good God, the Russians are burying their heads in the sand (or elsewhere) when it comes to Chinese power and Chinese intent in their Far East. Why? Because Russia knows they are weak and can't do much about China. And if the Russians raise a peep, China might react harshly--unlike the West that eagerly wants to know what we did to anger the poor little darlings in Moscow. Our fault, for sure, right?

Not that I want to start a new Cold War with Russia. They should have taken the opportunity to join the West. But they did not. Paranoid Russia is waging a cold war already in their own minds against imaginary American plots, which spills over into their policies.

I keep hoping that the old Soviets in leadership will die off and maybe Russia will join the West. But the new Russians are turning out to be just as bad.

Communism didn't make Russians paranoid, it seems. It just made them less efficient and more brutal.