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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Not That Reset, I'm Afraid

Governments will use points of pressure to influence other governments. That should be fairly obvious.

This is kind of funny:

Q: Back to the issue of Russia, have any Russian military or political leaders communicated to this department in any way any kind of threats that the Northern Distribution Network might not flow as smoothly as it is now if we push too hard on their assistance to Syria? And if not, are you concerned that they might do that if you do, like, stop ships from going into Tartus?

MR. LITTLE: Thanks for the question, Larry. It's a good one. I'm unaware of any such communication by the Russians. We're grateful for their support of the Northern Distribution Network, which I think I've described as a ground rule of military logistics in the past. It's an extremely complicated but essential network for our supplies in and out of Afghanistan. I have heard no indication that the Russians are going to change their participation in that network and would reiterate our thanks to the government of Russia for supporting it.

The idea that the Russians, of all paranoid people, would need to actually raise the threat explicitly for us to be aware of the threat is pretty funny. We know.

How reset do you think the Russians are, anyway?