by Mark Mylod

Created on: August 14, 2008

The United States and Russia have engaged in a collaborative effort on many issues including nuclear weapons agreements, economic opportunities, counter-terrorism, North Korea, international crime, space exploration, energy and health since George W. Bush's Administration. There is no doubt that things have improved significantly especially in light of Russia's past historical record. It is a fact and it cannot be ignored that the United States and Russian relations are better than ever before the Bush Administration.

This is not in any attributable to George Bush, but to the resilient economic force in this Era of Globalization. The faltering economy of the Soviet Union and pressure from the West brought the former superpower to its knees and they knew that changes had to occur economically for their survival. Many communist party leaders disagreed with these abrupt changes and of these men, stands the former head of the KGB, Vladimir Putin clinging to a dying and bankrupt ideology based more on fear, force and control than anything else. There can be no doubt that Dmitry Medvedev is just a puppet fulfilling Putin's ideological agenda sending chills throughout the international arena and the Georgian conflict may just be the beginning in thwarting their neighboring, democratic, separatists regimes. The support of Iran, refusal of the European missile defense systems, hesitancy with North Korea dilemma, and more recently the claim of withdrawal from Georgia should all have be sufficient evidence and a clue that the Russians vehemently refuse to cooperate with Western ideas and change. It is a question of ideology and anti-Western sediment that has little if nothing to do with United States foreign relations or for that matter the particular Presidential Administrations?
The Bush Administration has dramatically improved relations with Russia, but the events transpiring today in Georgia signifies that Russia has finally asserted itself in regard to this separatist regime while the Ukraine and Belarus look on with fear with as the Russian army flexes its muscles. The United States has not experienced anything quite like this since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 when Jimmy Carter's response was to place a trade embargo on the Soviet Union and a boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow. War is out of the question because there is no real recourse other than diplomacy with a nuclear-packing country. Ultimately, Russia is going to do what it wants to do fulfilling a long-awaited agenda as the Western countries watch, wait and hope that escalation of hostilities does not occur.

Learn more about this author, Mark Mylod.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.