Putin has described growing up dirt-poor in a rat-infested Soviet housing block. On occasion, he and his friends amused themselves by chasing rats through the corridors of the building. He tells what happened when a rat was cornered – it stopped running, and turned to attack.
Even your sweet, fluffy house-cat will do the same. Chase her into a corner with your vacuum cleaner, and she will turn on you and leap out of that corner – possibly right into your face – with 18 claws ready to scratch your eyes out. The survival instinct is universal among living creatures.
Putin’s telling of the rat story was meant as an allegory, a cautionary tale. Push Russia into a corner, and animal instincts – those of the bear, in this case – will take over.
NATO has been relentlessly encircling Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, against the better judgment of many people knowledgable in geopolitics. Here are some quotes from some of those knowledgable people, gathered by the same editors at The Daily Reckoning who published James Kunstler’s opinion-piece:
Pat Buchanan: “By moving NATO onto Russia’s front porch, we have scheduled a 21st-century confrontation.”
Henry Kissinger: “To Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country… Ukraine should not join NATO.”
Jack F. Matlock Jr. — former United States ambassador to the Soviet Union: “[NATO expansion would be the] most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat… since the Soviet Union collapsed.”
Noam Chomsky: “The idea that Ukraine might join a Western military alliance would be quite unacceptable to any Russian leader [and Ukraine’s desire to join NATO] is not protecting Ukraine, it is threatening Ukraine with major war.”
Famed Russian scholar Stephen Cohen: “If we move NATO forces… toward Russia’s borders […] it’s obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential.”
CIA director Bill Burns: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for [Russia] and I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
Former defense secretary Robert Gates: “Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. […] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation.”
Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia: “[Pushing] Ukraine into NATO… is stupid on every level… if you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it.”
Globalist Jeffrey Sachs: “NATO enlargement is utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a U.S. and NATO compromise with Russia.”
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