The nations that were captives of the old Soviet Union now have to face the unhappy fact that the U.S. has allowed itself to become powerless for all practical purposes . . . and that Putin is all too happy to fill the vacuum, shove that fact in our faces before the entire world, and take advantage of the situation to restore the old empire.
The more Bush says the more he demonstrates the current impotence of the U.S. and NATO. The fact is that the West is incapable of imposing any penalty of any significance on Russia or deterring future aggression by it.
Perhaps the other nations that used to be captives of the Soviet Union -- Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics. the Baltic states, Ukraine, etc. -- will see the handwriting on the wall and band together in an effective mutual defense organization with sufficient strength to make Russian action against any one or more of them unacceptably expensive.
With NATO worse than useless. the best we can do would be to provide arms, technology, training, and political support to the gutsy Eastern Europeans.
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