Follow-up discussion to Cold War 2.0 post

In reading what you wrote I agree to a certain extent but you lost me in the conclusions that you draw:

(1) NATO is a military organization... but it is a *defense* organization; insofar as one might be talking about military matters or (implicitly?) reserving the right to use force, it is not offensive in the case of NATO.

(2) Expelling the baltic nations that joined NATO would likely only lead to a liability with no recourse (i.e. the need to defend nations that have been, at that point, willfully excluded); isn't the catch-22 with respect to military force (e.g. missile defense that could be withdrawn) that you would you need it when it's no longer there (i.e. not have a motivation to remove it once you've put it in place)?

(3) Withdrawal would remove the semblance of a pretense... but only where the facts of the same are clear; it is openly speculated that, within Russia, what is reported is not consistent with what is reported in America... further, if Russia is acting out of fear then they would just be that much more likely to start WWIII given the opportunity - so how to signal the absence of hostile intent (independent of never attacking Afghanistan & Iraq in the first place) while not rewarding the Russians for flouting international norms under the guise of keeping an unaccountable U.S. in check?

(4) Russia should withdraw from Crimea... though Vladamir Putin has publicly declared, on multiple occasions, that he will not do so (and that economic sanctions can damage the country for the next couple of years without it affecting his opinion).

(5) We cannot "just let Ukraine duke it out and let the chips fall as (uh, where) they may"... Much like the people in those Baltic states that joined NATO post-2000 it is not the fault of the people but rather their leaders (and the fears/uncertainties/dependencies of those leaders) insofar as there is some problem today - statecraft is slow, steady work (kinda like email) but that is all the more reason to not putz up what we already have in the first place (a sentiment I imagine you agree with)...

PS: There are probably a handful of people out there with the game theory experience to see right through the situation to a simple solution; all I know is that compromise requires give and take (as you hinted at) and working together towards a common goal - maybe Obama's efforts at nuclear deterrence (i.e. decommissioning of nuclear weapons) should get some attention before he leaves office.

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Thx for your reply and hope you're well.

1. I agree with you about NATO's mission, but from the Russian perspective it doesn't matter - they are hostile and potentially offensive if they are observed to keep adding Eastern member states and massing troops near Russia. It is provocative.
2. You can't really win a cold war. Detente and the USSR collapse was exceptionally fortunate for the US and the world, and I'm not sure if we can expect it again. So the alternative is to reduce tension and live with a balance. That means a demilitarized buffer zone between NATO and Russia, to reduce fear on both sides. You presume that Russia intends to invade the Baltics. We don't know that for sure, and they may only be posturing to invade now because they see NATO massing and want to be able to strike first. You see how defense/precaution on both sides can lead to aggression? That is what we need to avoid.
1. I did say that NATO leaving the Baltics is based on a guarantee that they would help if Russia invades. So it is de facto like they are still in NATO (an attack on any member is an attack on all), but without the provocative troops presence that upsets Russia.
3. I think you signal lack of hostile intent and avoid rewarding Russia for bad behavior by: 
1. NATO pulling out of the Baltics, refusing to add any new members that are Russian neighbors, and ceasing military exercises on Russia's flank
2. But also requiring Russia to give back Crimea, stop its arms buildup in the arctic and on the Western border, and cease all military assistance to the Ukrainian rebels - only then will they lift the econ. sanctions
3. And let's remember - the goal is to avoid war, so there has to be some compromise. Sometime that means relaxing principles and "appeasing", as long as you believe it won't enable future worse behavior
4. Putin has to take a hard line with public statements, but I am not sure how critical Crimea is to his defense strategy (they obviously did just fine for decades without it). Again, if NATO pulled back, I think his fixation on Crimea would also naturally wane (esp. with the carrot of lifting sanctions on the table).
5. It's not like I want to abandon Ukraine, but what choice do we have? We can't allow Ukraine to be a proxy cold war and pretext for nuclear war. If either side meddles in Ukraine, it will necessitate a tit-for-tat by the other side, and then you get the escalation spiral. Maybe someone will blink like the CMC, but sadly we can't count on Putin to be as conscientious as Khruschev. And let's remember that the rebels are still at a disadvantage, and have little chance of taking over the country. Maybe the best thing is for Eastern Ukraine to secede if it stops the killing (like in Sudan)? Of course that is not ideal for the gov't in Kiev, but peace has a price.

Cold War 2.0

http://www.hbo.com/vice/episodes/03/36-cold-war-2-0/video/ep-314-debrief.html?autoplay=true

Vice had a special about the Ukraine crisis, and how the US/NATO and Russia are inching closer to the brink (even though we might not realize it in light of the spotty media coverage).

We know that the Russian regime is corrupt and in some cases unlawful. Probably the world would be better off without Putin. But of course they see the US exactly the same, and we have committed war crimes since the fall of the USSR too. Domestic media paint things as good vs. evil in both nations. Maybe with the facts as the impartial judge, Russia has committed more transgressions than the West, but that doesn't really matter when missiles get launched.

So how did we get here?

• After the fall of the USSR, the Russian economy was in shambles, their pride was shaken, and recently freed Warsaw Pact republics were looking towards new partnerships in Europe for prosperity and security
• Russia's aging military was about all it had going for it when Putin took power (embarrassed by the Kursk sub accident, botched hostage rescues, and troubles fighting the Chechens), and his cabinet has been aggressively spending and modernizing since the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Surging energy prices due to the War on Terror and rise of Asia helped Russia's defense budget
• Former Soviet territories Czech, Poland, and Hungary joined NATO in 1999, and with US encouragement, 9 more nations followed suit from 2004-2009 (incl. all the Baltics)
• And with the War on Terror bringing US/Coalition forces to several Central Asian republics and Afghanistan, Russia saw itself militarily encircled
• Traditionally, the US feels that it controls the Americas and Pacific, and Russia's sphere of influence is Central Asia, but now where does Eastern Europe stand?
• Russia's influence was challenged in the Balkan wars, where Serbia was an important ally
• While Bosnia was a UN-approved mission, the Kosovo campaign was mostly driven by NATO, due to the Russian UN veto
• NATO decided to defy Russia and bomb Serbia without UN approval, which was seen as disrespectful aggression and a possible portent of future incursions into previously "hands off" nations in the Russian sphere
• The Orange Revolution in Ukraine failed (mostly driven by their terrible economy), and they legitimately returned a pro-Moscow leader (Yanukovich) to power
• Yanukovich was working to scrap a previous deal to bring Ukraine into the EU, which upset much of pro-European western Ukraine
• He eventually stepped down amidst protests, but Russia saw this as a US-backed coup, the Ukrainian civil war broke out, and Russia illegally annexed Crimea
• Putin also declared that Russia should control lands where Russian is spoken, which includes eastern Ukraine (Donetsk region) and some of the Baltics
• I won't go into the Ukraine war details here because it's complex and I don't know much, but it's clear that both powers do not want Ukraine to fall to the other side
• But as a result, NATO has tripled its troops presence in the Baltics/Arctic, and there are even US troops on the ground in western Ukraine
• Russia has amassed forces on the Ukraine border to levels not seen since WWII (and also moved nukes to their far western territory Kalingrad, which is 300 miles from Berlin)
• The US has been working on installing missile defense batteries in Eastern Europe since the Bush years (currently stalled but Obama has revise the plan to start construction in Poland in 2018)
• Both sides are posturing/provoking the other with large military exercises and unusual presence of air/sea forces in previously neutral areas

Who knows what mistakes or calculated risks could result in a scary escalation? So how to we pull back from the brink?

• The problem with military buildups is that the other side can't be sure if they are defensive or not
• We in the West would probably find it ridiculous that Russians think that NATO wants to attack them, but can you really blame them?
• The US/EU sanctions on Russia due to their Ukraine actions is seen as economic warfare (even though the plunging Ruble is mostly due to oil than our sanctions)
• They saw how the US/UK ignored dissenting opinions, brutally invaded and occupied Iraq, and set up new bases all over the world like imperialists
• If the US wants to be the sole superpower, obviously they need to knock down Russia a notch or two (or cage them like we do with Iran)
• But Russia also wants to seize the opportunity of a militarily distracted/weakened US in order to increase its influence and security position - maybe back to the USSR days where they were feared by all
• NATO can't just sit idly by when Crimea falls and Russia is lying about its troops and weapons pouring into Donetsk, so they feel the need to send forces east to show they mean business and deter further Russian aggression
• Barring a risky nuclear ultimatum, both sides will not back down at present course (and will match actions tit-for-tat), so a different strategy is needed
• There are no "madmen" in this situation, and both sides are acting perfectly rationally - just like the Cuban Missile Crisis. But that is the scary part: when escalation to war is the rational move (not to mention what freak accidents or irrational moves could occur), we have to change the rules of the game before it's too late.
• A stalemate and huge buildup of forces on the border is not a sustainable solution either, because a bunch of anxious troops and one false move could make things quickly unravel. We have to demilitarize Eastern Europe, and hopefully permanently.
• Why did NATO accept the Baltics and other former Warsaw Pact nations into their club? Those armies are tiny - what did NATO have to gain defensively at the risk of provoking Russia? That land is very valuable from an offensive standpoint, which is why Russia took it so seriously.
• They should be free to join the EU for prosperity and non-military cooperation, but NATO is a military org with only one purpose - a hedge against Russian invasion of WESTERN Europe (kind of irrelevant since the UK and France have nukes)
• We can kindly "expel" those nations from NATO (compensate them economically), withdraw all forces (incl. any missile defense plans), and declare those nations an unaligned buffer zone - but sign a treaty with Russia that any incursions from either side will be met with force
• That way we remove pretense that Russia uses to justify its actions against a perceived NATO threat, and if Russia does try to muscle into Eastern Europe again, they must do so fully aware that they're ushering in WWIII
• Russia should reciprocate by withdrawing from Crimea
• We just have to let Ukraine duke it out and let the chips fall as they may; the losing power has to respect the rights of the victorious side in the name of world peace
• I'm not saying any of this is easy, and some people will get screwed, but it gives a better chance to avoid nuclear war than the status quo

Children fleeing Central America

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/jul/29/why-nicaraguan-kids-arent-fleeing-to-the-us/

I found this interesting. Of the 50K or so children picked up at the US-MEX border in the last 6 months, most of them are from Guatemala/Honduras/El Salvador, yet very few are from neighboring Nicaragua.

Of course Honduras is the murder capital of the Americas (if not the world), so Nicaragua by default has less violence. All of those countries are pretty poor, but Nicaragua has much less drug gang violence and a different immigration history with the US. It stems from the Cold War. The US interfered in the affairs of all those nations to support pro-US, right-wing forces against leftist opponents. For Nicaragua, the US backed the Contra rebels against the Sandinista gov't (which, with popular support, overthrew the US-backed Somoza dictatorship beforehand). Because of that, the US was more welcoming of Nicaraguan refugees in the 1980s, similar to pro-American Cubans and Hmong. So the ones who wanted to leave may be already here. In addition, after the civil war Nicaragua invested more in functional law enforcement, community development, and proactive gov't (without America's help). The Sandinistas were recently elected back to power.

For those other nations, the US supported the repressive, corrupt, right-wing regimes in power against leftist insurgents. So refugees fleeing those nations were not as welcomed in the US (and no specific provisions were written for them). It could be coincidence, but it's likely that the US support for those less democratic, more brutal regimes paved the way for the lawlessness, violence, and misery today. Therefore, do we have somewhat of a moral obligation to help the fleeing kids?

How the Dulles brothers made Kissinger and Cheney look like peaceniks

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/234752747/meet-the-brothers-who-shaped-u-s-policy-inside-and-out

We don't hear much about these two (apart from the DC airport name), but their beliefs and actions literally shaped the Cold War, US global ambitions, and we are still dealing with the negative repercussions today.

Ike appointed John F. Dulles as his Sec. State and Allen Dulles as the CIA head. They were both corporate lawyers who represented, among others, United Fruit and the financiers of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Enough said. Ike basically gave them carte blanche authority to make enemies and "intervene" in any foreign country they saw fit, and they didn't hesitate: Guatemala, Iran, Congo, Cuba, Indonesia, and Vietnam ... basically our greatest hits. They were especially adamant about Iran, because under no circumstances could they tolerate a leader nationalizing oil reserves for the people, and renegotiating terms on foreign companies. Imagine the shockwaves to big business, and what message that would send to other countries.

Unlike Kennedy's "team of rivals" model, it was very dangerous for Ike to appoint two like-minded, corporate shill, biological brothers into the complementary (and sometime necessarily adversarial) positions of State and CIA. One side shapes foreign policy and strategy, and the other carries it out covertly. Or one side tries to make peace, while the other sows the seeds of war. It's playing with fire. Now they were basically one org, without any sanity checks or devil's advocate to say, "What happens after we overthrow Lumumba? (answer: civil war and genocide for decades)," or "Maybe we can't win in Vietnam."  I guess the Dulles' and their Cold War were enough to make General Ike warn the nation about the military-industrial complex upon his retirement.

The Dulleses believed that the US, its market economy, and its multinational corporations were exceptional and entitled to dominate the globe (because we were the good guys). Anyone who opposed these interests (regardless of the reason, like the crazy notions of self determination and liberty) were automatically evil monsters. It's OK for George Washington, but not for Third World leaders (esp. when they are sitting on natural resources). Clearly enemy #1 was communism, and by extension populist nationalism, because it went against the model of private capital might makes right, and neo-colonialism/imperialism. Any attempt to regulate or take power/profit away from US companies was as much of a threat to US security as nuclear missiles.

Apart from the direct and indirect violence & collateral damage (5M total deaths at least), militancy/extremism, and harm to our global reputation in most of the world, here is the Dulles' biggest legacy and curse on humanity: a pervasive culture of rejecting peace talks and the undermining of democracy.

After Stalin died, the USSR wanted to improve relations with the West. It was a great opportunity, but Dulles was the only major foreign leader to reject this overture (and pressured our allies to do the same), because he thought the Russians were too evil to talk to, and preferred that our conflict continue. Later, both sides' nuclear brinksmanship almost ended the world. During the North-South Vietnam diplomatic talks after the French withdrawal, most European powers felt that the party was over and they should learn to live with Ho Chi Minh. Dulles was the only one who felt that Ho could be beaten militarily if we stuck it out, and he persuaded Ike and Kennedy. We know how that turned out. But you can see this US hubris and misguided thinking carrying over to our negotiations (or lack theoreof) with Cuba, Iran, and North Korea over the years. We have certain beliefs about other people, and our stubbornness ends up prolonging/worsening conflicts and missing out on opportunities.

Why was the US so successful in overthrowing the democratic regimes in Iran, Guatemala, and Congo in the '50s? The author argues that it was because those societies (and their idealistic, civilian, center-left leaders - a.k.a. died-in-the-wool commies) were fairly open and democratic, thereby allowing foreign agitators access to covertly undermine the gov't and eventually launch a coup d'etat (with a pro-US dictator waiting in the wings). Later revolutionaries learned from those cases, and ruled more like repressive tyrants in order to defend against a possible US overthrow. Cuba, North Vietnam, the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, etc. all became more paranoid and less democratic after the Dulles' time. It could just be coincidence, but at least in the case of Cuba, Che and Castro were quoted that they would not repeat the mistakes of Arbenz in Guatemala. They would repress and spy on their own people to make sure the CIA wasn't gaining a foothold.

So even though the US portrayed itself as the global example and defender of democracy, in fact its foreign policy under the Dulleses was terribly undemocratic, and motivated many others around the world to choose brutality over democracy too (tragically, during a time of global change that we will never get back, when we really could have forged tremendous social progress and peace). And the human race may never fully recover from the legacies of those dark times. To me, that is a much greater failure, security threat, and shame on the US than letting a few undeveloped countries elect a socialist leader, or try to nationalize their resources.  

Crazy stuff that went down at Area 51

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/136356848/area-51-uncensored-was-it-ufos-or-the-ussr

An LA Times journalist recently published a history of Area 51, the US government's secret nuclear and air force facility in Nevada. She starts her Fresh Air interview describing all the bone-headed nuclear experiments we did after the end of WWII. As we already know, our gov't detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons above ground (and so did other nations), spreading radiation all over (and in some cases deliberately exposing soldiers to the danger to observe the effects), until leaders finally woke up and agreed to various versions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (that W Bush in all his wisdom pulled the US out of, but Obama is trying to restore despite GOP Congressional resistance). Pretty much all US nuclear testing was executed or planned by personnel at Area 51.

Just to "see what happens", the US gov't detonated nukes in the upper atmosphere above the South Pacific to see how the ozone layer would respond. There was also another defensive objective to see if a nuclear explosion up there (and ensuing EMP) would disrupt the guidance systems of incoming Soviet ICBMs (it didn't). The NYT got wind of this and threatened to expose the gov't, but the Truman administration somehow convinced them to keep quite for "national security" until the 1980s. But still it's unclear whether the test actually damaged the ozone layer and put people at risk. Scientists on the project were aware of this risk at the time, but reassured the team that the atmospheric turbulence following the detonation would "fill" any hole created by the blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion#List_of_high-altitude_nuclear_explosions

Even worse for human health, the US gov't had almost around-the-clock nuclear-armed bombers in the air over the North Atlantic as quick responders in the event of a Soviet attack. But as we know, planes crash sometimes. On at least 2 occasions, nuclear bombers crashed in Europe and dropped their payloads. In one accident over Spain, there was a midair refueling gaffe and the plane ejected its warheads while crashing, but their parachutes failed and the bombs spread plutonium all over. A US hazmat team was sent in to clean it up, but they weren't told what they were cleaning, so they had zero radiation protection. I'm sure they're all dead by now. In Greenland, a B-52 crashed on the ice after another refueling goof, and the ensuring fire melted a hole. The plane debris and its 4 nuclear warheads sunk into the ocean, and it's still unclear whether they have all been recovered. That accident was where the term "broken arrow" was coined. How this relates to Area 51 is that the gov't decided to test what would happen if such a plane crash took place on the US mainland. They deliberately exploded a plutonium dirty bomb in the desert to simulate a crash, and tried to figure out ways to clean it up. It was a total disaster, and the site was still being worked on into the 1980s (making Fukushima look like spilled milk). Plutonium's half-life is many thousands of years by the way, and it's pretty much the most toxic inhaled substance known to man. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash

And now for the creme-de-la-creme, the UFO question. We know of stories of a UFO crashing in Roswell, NM in the 1950s, and the gov't trying to cover it up by moving all the evidence to deep inside Area 51. The author interviewed an anonymous source, a veteran of the US Atomic Energy Agency/Manhattan Project who was an insider at Area 51. When "War of the Worlds" aired on the radio in the 1930s, the US went into a panic with many believing it was a real alien invasion. Hitler and Stalin (and Washington) took note of this, and found it to be a legit security concern. Creating the illusion of an alien invasion could cause enough chaos and distraction among US armed forces and the public to make a foreign attack easier. The USSR and Western powers snatched up many of the mad Nazi scientists at the end of WWII. It's possible that Stalin took over some of the work of the Horten brothers who created a "flying wing" craft for Germany. While not a flying saucer, it was some sort of triangular craft that definitely didn't resemble a typical airplane. Some thought the Hortens achieved the ability for the craft to hover. And then there was Auschwitz's Dr. Mengele, who conducted all sorts of unethical human experimentation. Supposedly Stalin cut a deal with him as well, to create genetically or surgically altered people who resembled the child-like, big-headed alien creatures of sci-fi. So the "UFO crash" at Roswell could have been a test run of this Soviet project in order to create American panic over an imaginary alien invasion. Apparently the craft pilots (who looked like aliens) were captured alive, and then interrogated by the US about all this.

Yeah, right, you're probably thinking. Why wouldn't Truman just expose all this to the media to show how depraved and desperate the USSR was? Maybe he was partly worried that the Soviet goal would be achieved, that no one would believe this hoax was actually man-made, and fear an alien attack. Or as the author's source said, we kept it quiet because we wanted to replicate the Soviet project (either to shove it back in Moscow's face, or at least learn the science of how they did it). So supposedly the US tried to alter people to look like aliens as well, which was the last obscene straw to make the author's secret source want to spill the beans. And the US gov't has kept all this and Area 51 quiet so as to not expose the evidence of our horrible experimentation and other crimes to the public.

Well, considering all the wacky research during the Cold War, and all the disturbingly creative strategies the 2 superpowers devised to destroy each other, I guess this isn't so far fetched. But you would think that the author would try to corroborate her source's story. Why hasn't anyone in Russia come forward? Thousands of Americans must have worked on these horrific projects as well. And if the Soviets created a flying saucer, why wouldn't they use that technology in more traditional ways to gain an advantage over us? I suppose it's possible that they just had a stealthy spy plane transport the saucer high over US airspace, and then drop it off with a parachute. But if the Soviets' goal was to trigger an alien panic, why not drop dozens of saucers and "aliens" over populated US metro areas, so the US gov't could never squelch it? Lastly, it's not a new thing that the US has engaged in criminal human experimentation (LSD, Tuskegee, etc.). What's the big deal about keeping this one so secret? I guess we may never know, but it sure is an interesting take on an old story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_brothers
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/experiment.htm

The Cold War right wing extremist roots of the Tea Party

Glen Beck and the Tea Party's right-wing extremist Cold War roots:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_wilentz

The Princeton professor author of this article thinks that if several Tea Baggers (how some of them have chosen to call themselves) win seats in Congress this fall, the GOP representation will be possibly the most right-wing in our history. People like Barry Goldwater were dismissed or even feared as dangerous wackos during the Cold War, but now similar views are well accepted in the TP. Mainstream conservatives like William Buckley cautioned that candidates like Goldwater would hurt their party. Recently Karl Rove insinuated something similar about TP Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell (Delaware), and the pro-TP backlash was so huge that Rove had to recant on the cable news circuit. When Karl Rove is the voice of moderation, I think the GOP has to realize that they've gone too far. And probably the establishment already has, since the RNC is also secretly hoping for the TP to fail so they can be top dog again. But how can they speak out against a movement that is galvanizing conservatives, raising money, and may win them back Congress? But they should consider the long-term repercussions of hitching their wagon to these wild horses.  

I find it ironic that Beck (the self-proclaimed historical brain behind the TP movement) espouses the libertarian views that government should stay out of our lives and the free market, and that gov. control leads to totalitarianism and fascism. Yet he is a devoted Mormon, which is one of the most socially invasive religions in history. Mormons can't watch certain movies, can't drink certain things, and must give up a % of their wages to the church (i.e. taxes). The church even tells members to rat out each other if they witness violations, like the Gestapo. So it's evil when a body of democratically elected officials and Constitutional law experts establishes things like due process, the EPA, and income tax, but it's fine when appointed church leaders (with no accountability, transparency, and checks/balances) do it?