Abu Wabu

Via Ace
In Idiotworld, you just elect a smooth-talkin' pop star with a thousand-watt smile and all your enemies magically evaporate, replaced forever with unicorns and rainbows. In the real world, you follow that recipe and those same enemies note your shiny new weakness and suddenly return to their former belligerence, despite all the wishful-thinking idiocy you serve up -- idiocy like "reset buttons" and "Smart Power".

Russia is weighing changes to its military doctrine that would allow for a “preventive” nuclear strike against its enemies — even those armed only with conventional weapons. The news comes just as American diplomats are trying to get Russia to cut down its nuclear stockpile, and put the squeeze on Iran’s suspect nuclear program.

In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.”

Quoth Drew M:

Funny but I don't remember the Bush/Cheney Evil Twins threatening to preemptively nuke someone. Yet they were the dangers to the world and the Russians are the ones we need to reengage with in a kinder and gentler way.

So, we throw eastern Europe under the bus by scrapping missile defense and we get no help on Iran. We practically beg for a new nuclear arms reduction treaty and we get this kind of rhetoric out of the Soviets, er, Russians (sorry, don't know how I could have made that mistake).

It's almost as if the weaker we appear, the more belligerent the Soviets, damn, the Russians become.

Not to worry, son: Cajonus Giganticus has it all under control. In fact, he is now inviting the Soviets, whoops, now there I go; the Russians, to inspect American nuke sites. What could possibly go wrong? After all, Cajonus Giganticus has made himself clear:

America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia.