Reevaluating Russia

Reevaluating Russia

According to military historian and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Fredrick Kagan, the threat that Russia poses following the invasion of Georgia has been severely understated.

“This is a major problem. We have not seen an overt act of aggression by a major state, at least in the northern hemisphere, since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, and I fear that this is not the end of it,”

Kagan says that the threat extends to all former Soviet nations are potentially at risk, citing a 27 percent increase in Russia’s military budget, a renewed attempt to create an all volunteer army, and three full scale army exercises within the past two months.

“What they are basically trying to do is to create a small American [sic] army that will have the capability to conventionally retake the Soviet Empire.”

Russia has also had numerous violations of international law beyond the invasion of South Ossetia, including interrogating prisoners of war and the systematically bombing the entire Georgian military complex. Kagan says that they declaration made by Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin that Russia has the right to intervene militarily in other countries to protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens abroad is also a dangerous precedent in international law.

“That sets the bar for Russian intervention on the floor. There is no way that the Baltic states or Ukraine can behave in such a way that the Russians will never have the opportunity to say that the dignity of Russian citizens in those territories is not under attack…dignity in this context is a meaningless concept,” said Kagan.

Kagan says that a response is possible, and that the idea that the U.S. needs to maintain good relationships in order to have Russian help deter the Iranian nuclear threats is ungrounded.

“The Russians have never been helpful with the Iranian nuclear program, nor will they be helpful with the Iranian nuclear program, except in the sense that they are helping the Iranians to develop a nuclear program. What they will not do is help us to shut that program down.”