”We are the leader of the free world. Do something. We look weak.”

 

 

 Is Biden too fearful of provoking Putin? 

 欧州の問題であり、アメリカは軍隊を送るべきではないが、

　We are the leader of the free world.

 　Do something.

 　We look weak.

We ‘failed to deter’ Putin’s invasion from the outset: Dan Hoffman

CIAの情報によってロシアの行動を予想しそれを公表したのはいいが、抑止するための兵器をおくっていなかった。

戦争ではなにが起きるかわからない。ミグを提供すれば、優位に展開する可能性もある。

Is Russia setting the stage to use chemical weapons in Ukraine? - BBC Newsnight

化学兵器の使用は超えてはならない一線だと警告したにもかかわらず、アサドは化学兵器を使用。それに対してたいした罰も与えなかった。

図に乗ったプーチンも化学兵器を使うのではないか、もし使ったら、NATOが参戦すべきか？

ロシアは核武装しているので、NATO諸国が攻撃されない限り参戦すべきではない。他にやれることもある、と。

  Andrew Bacevich: Ukraine is Paying the Price for the U.S. “Recklessly” Pushing NATO Expansion

(one's) chickens come home to roost

One's previous actions will eventually have consequences or cause problems for oneself.

 

 At that time, there were many Americans—George Kennan, the diplomat, would be perhaps the most prominent—that warned against NATO expansion as likely to cause us troubles down the road. We ignored those warnings, and I think that we’re kind of in a chicken coming home to roost situation right here.

I am not a Putin apologist and he is the principal cause of this catastrophe that we are experiencing, but Putin had been quite candid in warning that the eastward movement of NATO, and in particular the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, constituted from his perspective a vital threat, a threat to vital Russian security interests. We ignored that, and I think to some degree, this terrible, unnecessary war is a result of that.

AMY GOODMAN: You are not the only one who says this. One person who warned years ago about NATO expansion in Eastern Europe is William Burns, the current director of the CIA.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: He served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008. In his memoir, The Back Channel, Burns wrote “sitting at the embassy in Moscow in the mid-nineties, it seemed to me that NATO expansion was premature at best and needlessly provocative at worst.”

The other reason we did it, of course, apart from what I think is really kind of a deep-seated Russophobia that pervades many members of the American elite, was the belief at that time, that is to say back in the 1990s, the belief that Russia couldn’t do anything about it. Russia was weak, Russia was disorganized, and therefore it seemed to be a low-risk proposition to exploit Russian weakness to advance our objectives and also to advance the objectives of other European countries, most of which had either been part of the Soviet Union or had been Soviet satellites and saw the end of the Cold War as their chance to achieve freedom and prosperity.

So everything that has happened thus far over the first couple of weeks has demonstrated that they are incapable of using violence in a controlled and politically purposeful way,

 ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah, but had Zelensky said, had the Americans said, had NATO said out loud, prior to the beginning of the war that, “We all collectively recognize that Ukraine is not going to be joining NATO anytime soon,” if we were willing to put that in writing, then I would argue that it would at least have been possible, not certain, it might have been possible to dissuade Putin from taking the course that he chose. Again, he chose the course. He is the perpetrator. He is the criminal. But nonetheless, I think a wiser handling of the NATO issue might have given Putin a way to avoid taking the terrible steps that he ended up taking.

侵略したプーチンが悪いのは当然だが、東方拡大を警戒していたのは明らかであって、やりかたによって今日の惨事を避けられたかもしれない、と。 

中国はロシアにとってお得意さまだが、ロシアより欧米日本のほうが中国にとってお得意様。

Michael Smerconish: What does Putin view as the 'trip wire'?

ミグを提供しないと明言することでロシアを安心させている。

しかし、アメリカは様々な武器を提供しており、ミグを提供しても防衛用であり問題ない。提供してもNATOとやりあおうとは思わないだろうーNATOのほが圧倒的に強い。ただし、アメリカのパイロットを使うべきではない。