Via Instapundit, the Russians are pressing their Baltic neighbors:
Europe has been quite passive while Russia has continued its bullying in the Baltic. This bullying has taken many forms: Russia canceled the border agreement with Estonia that had been already agreed on, in Russia's favor, in June. As a pretext for the canceling of the agreement, Russia used an Estonian Parliament resolution that called the Soviet Union's occupation of Estonia…an occupation. Putin's Russia has started a campaign against its Baltic neighbors, using denial of historical facts as a way to attack its neighbors experience with Soviet Union.
I can't bring myself to care very much even though this is frustrating and annoying. Russia should be our friend. But we have China to worry about and a Vodka-crippled and shrinking Russia just isn't going to be much of a threat to us even if they go completely Soviet again. Simply put, this is a self-correcting problem:
As so often is the case, Russia's strategy of bullying may in the end harm its own interests. Russia's fear of NATO enlargement to Finland has to be seen in a wider perspective: for Russia, a NATO country is out of its sphere of influence and so possibly an enemy (or at least an obstacle). Violations of Estonian airspace ended suddenly when NATO airplanes started to patrol Estonian airspace.
If Russia becomes a threat, the Europeans who drifted away from us after the Soviets collapsed will re-engage to stop that threat. We won't need to use our power to contain this rising threat if it should happen--Europe will. This is a reason not to disband NATO in favor of the EU defense alliance. Our leadership of NATO will guard against the Old Euros trying to appease the threat at the expense of the new Europe on the front line.
All this makes Russia's apparent bid for past glories as sad as Al Bundy going on about four touchdowns in one high school game. Like Al (who I admire so much in a tragic, anti-hero way), the Russians are not and will not be major league.
The Russians need to join us, not engage in self-destructive behavior that will only alienate their only source of help when the Chinese extract all the military technology they can from Russia and decide that China should administer Russia's far east.
