Hillary Clinton Could Easily Push America into Open Conflict with Russia

[Ulmita]

This is an article that appeared a few days ago to the national interest (link). Although i get a feeling that NI is pro Trump, it makes some valid points. What if Clinton gets in power and tries to enforce a no fly zone over Russia's close ally Syria? (something that she had said she would do). What if she tries to arm the Kiev government? The only certain thing is that USA - Russia relations are going to hit bottom low if she gets elected. What do you guys think?

The article as it appears in NI:

One especially disturbing trend in global affairs is the marked deterioration in relations between the United States and Russia. Much will depend on the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump has staked out a reasonably conciliatory policy toward Moscow. And in the highly improbable event that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson emerged victorious, the United States would certainly pursue a less interventionist, confrontational foreign policy toward Russia as well as other countries.But Trump and a handful of other dissenters have triggered the wrath of the foreign-policy establishment by daring to suggest that Washington’s Russia policy may be unwise and that the two countries have important mutualinterests.

Most anti-Russian hawks are backing Hillary Clinton, and the implications of a Clinton victory are extremely ominous. When Russia annexed Crimea, Clinton compared Russian president Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler—a comparison so extreme that it drew dissents even from some usual supporters. Yet there is no doubt that she would take a very hard line toward Moscow. Among other things, Clinton recommended that the United States impose a no-fly zone in Syria despite the risk that it could mean shooting down Russian military aircraft that were operating at the request of the Syrian government. Anyone who is that reckless is not likely to retreat from confrontations in eastern Europe or other arenas. Indeed, she has already called for not only more financial assistance but more military aid to Ukraine.

Even though Russia is now a weakened conventional power exhibiting little more than regional ambitions, rather than a malignantly expansionist totalitarian state with global ambitions, the bulk of the U.S. foreign policy establishment treats Moscow as though little has changed since the days of Leonid Brezhnev, if not Joseph Stalin. Yet Russia, with 142 million people, has less than 60 percent of the population of the old Soviet Union—and it is an aging population. The Russian economy is likewise much smaller (only $1.3 trillion). That is around one-tenth the size of the U.S. economy. Moreover, Russia’s economy is both fragile and one-dimensional, with a heavy dependence on energy exports.

In short, Russia does not have the features one usually finds in an aggressively revisionist power in the international system. Nevertheless, Russophobes have viewed Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as the harbinger of much wider aggression, when there is almost no evidence of such an agenda. A more plausible interpretation is that those moves were an effort by Putin’s government to strengthen a modest security zone along Russia’s western border against what Russian leaders see as NATO’s increasingly menacing eastward incursions. Efforts by the United States and its allies to undermine Ukraine’s pro-Russian government and back the successful efforts of street demonstrators to replace it with a pro-Western regime likely intensified Moscow’s suspicions.

Instead of responding, as the United States and its NATO allies have done, with provocative military exercises and new military deployments in eastern Europe, they should back away and accept a limited Russian sphere of influence in that region. Unfortunately, Western, especially American, leaders steadfastly refuse to do so. It has been a case of bipartisan stubbornness in American policy circles. Both Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush’s secretary of state, and John Kerry, Barack Obama’s, sharply condemned Russia for taking military action against recalcitrant neighbors and explicitly rejected even the theoretical legitimacy of a sphere of influence, however modest. Clinton clearly shares that arrogant stance.

That attitude is profoundly unwise. Major powers typically insist on preeminence in their immediate neighborhoods, and we should not expect Russia to be an exception. After all, with its proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States declared the entire Western Hemisphere to be within its sphere of influence. Moreover, U.S. and Russian interests on a variety of important issues, including counterterrorism, coincide more than they conflict—a point that Trump correctly emphasized in his most recent foreign-policy address. Consequently, maintaining cooperative relations with Moscow makes good strategic sense. It also would be the height of bitter irony if, having escaped a direct military clash with the Soviet Union (a truly dangerous adversary) during the Cold War, the United States stumbled into conflict with a mundane Russia because of a needlessly inflexible and confrontational approach. Yet that is now a real danger unless U.S. policy becomes more accommodating.

Unfortunately, given the growing probability of a Clinton victory in November, U.S.-Russian relations, already in bad shape, are likely to deteriorate further. The two countries have been teetering on the precipice of a second Cold War for several years. The danger is that they will now slip into that dark abyss—or plunge into something even worse, an armed conflict with nuclear implications.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest, is the author of 10 books and more than 600 articles on international affairs.
Image: Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire. Flickr/Gage Skidmore

[Skroe]

I mean, I'm all for as maximally an antangonistic relationship as possible with Russia. I've made that clear on many occasions.You don't ward off a bully by being reasonable. You ward off a bully by punching them in the chest so hard they're on their knees gasping for air.

Let's give Russia a punch to the chest they'll never, ever forget.

National Interest, however, "cleaned house" so to speak, once Trump won the nomination. During the primary thery were very anti-Trump, and sections of it still are, but the editorial direction shifted to a pro-Trump anti-Internationalist viewpoint as a consequence of his nomination. Several editors and writers were fired, others quit.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/20/...-donald-trump/

They were replaced with alt-right fringe people nobody's heard of, as is the Trump way. Given his impending historic loss, this will probably be overturned in the winter.

It's very sad for NI Magazine. It's never had huge circulation, but was widely read among the US Foreign policy community and many extremely influential articles first appeared in it over the decades. It's like Roll Call or The Hill.... popular among power brokers. That such an institution fell to trump is rather profane.

[Adam Jensen]

Yeah I'm sure after fifty years of staring down the barrel of a nuclear gun, we're now going to forget all of the Cold War and go to war against Russia.

[Blade Wolf]

If the polls swing in favor of conflict with Russia then it's a possibility.

[Mihalik]

I wish that just ONCE we could fucking be pragmatic.

Throw a bone to the Russians in Syria, keep Assad (all the alternatives are obviously shit), but make it contingent on Russia backing the fuck up in Europe. Put more NATO units in Eastern Europe, give the Ukrainians access to NATO defense contracts with a few "aid packages" etc.

Carrot and a stick. Fucking prioritize for once.

Also next time Putin visits Crimea and moves troops to the Ukrainian border, give the Ukrainians some mothballed Abrahamses and maybe a few Carl Gustavs and stuff.

[May90]

It is interesting, Ulmita, how you complain about "fear-mongering" when a certain article doesn't share your narrative, but don't see anything wrong with it when it does. I mean, come on, this article is pretty much a perfect example of fear-mongering: "Don't elect Clinton, because if you elect her, there could easily be war!"

Also, who uses words like "Russophobes" in a serious article? Clearly the guy writing the article is not biased in the slightest...

[Deleted]

You don't ward off a bully by being reasonable. You ward off a bully by punching them in the chest so hard they're on their knees gasping for air.

So whom is going to be the one punching the USA in the chest? It's not exactly as if the USA is a saint itself in this world.

[Mihalik]

So whom is going to be the one punching the USA in the chest? It's not exactly as if the USA is a saint itself in this world.

Well the US is like the Dumb Jock Highschool Football Player who occasionally gives fat kids a wedgie, but cries watching Romantic Comedies and beats up your bully if you help him with homework.

[Ulmita]

It is interesting, Ulmita, how you complain about "fear-mongering" when a certain article doesn't share your narrative, but don't see anything wrong with it when it does. I mean, come on, this article is pretty much a perfect example of fear-mongering: "Don't elect Clinton, because if you elect her, there could easily be war!"

Also, who uses words like "Russophobes" in a serious article? Clearly the guy writing the article is not biased in the slightest...

Its because if you click on the links provided by the article you would see that she did indeed asked for a no fly zone and that she is indeed ready for shit to go down

[Shalcker]

It is interesting, Ulmita, how you complain about "fear-mongering" when a certain article doesn't share your narrative, but don't see anything wrong with it when it does. I mean, come on, this article is pretty much a perfect example of fear-mongering: "Don't elect Clinton, because if you elect her, there could easily be war!"

It happens to be attitude shared by many, Russians included. Nothing Clinton said suggests otherwise.

[Deleted]

Also next time Putin visits Crimea and moves troops to the Ukrainian border, give the Ukrainians some mothballed Abrahamses and maybe a few Carl Gustavs and stuff.

Russia is mobilizing and relocating troops as we speak. They don't actually need anyone's fucking approval. And nobody, neither the EU nor the US, has agreed to actually arm Ukraine. Because guess what, it's not in anyone's vested interest. Anything and everything east of Oder and Czech Rep *IS* Russia. Bringing these states back under Russian domination will take some time in the case of e.g. Poland and Baltic States (which first have to be removed from NATO, otherwise the whole deal will really stink and cast aspersions on the entire pact). But it is an absoulte certainty in the mid- to long run. No sane Western politician will die for Danzig... or Warschau, or some other shithole town nobody normal can even locate on the map ;P

[Ulmita]

So whom is going to be the one punching the USA in the chest? It's not exactly as if the USA is a saint itself in this world.

Funny to say that, USA is as we speak, ravaging several nations. Russia post WW2 is a fucking saint in front of the USA. The problem is if their new president is about to destabilize the planet even more than what they are doing now.

[Skroe]

Yeah I'm sure after fifty years of staring down the barrel of a nuclear gun, we're now going to forget all of the Cold War and go to war against Russia.

The "danger" so to speak is that emerging technologies may make such a war winnable. This has ALWAYS been the case. 30 years ago, accurate warheads (measured in tens to the low hundreds of meters, compared to the high hundreds or thousands), were such an "emerging technology". And the identity of that technology is always changing.

The US Navy, for example is both rapidly investing in, and looking for ways to protect itself from, underwater drones. If Russia (or China) kept a fleet of cost effective, extremely long duration (1-2 year) low cost submersible drones at sea, looking for US Ballistic Missile Submarines, it would effectively neutralize an entire leg of MAD. A single Russian attack sub, the traditional way that Russia would hunt our subs (and vice versa) costs about $1 billion give or take. That can buy a lot... a real lot... of undersea drones. The US aims to have a minimum of about 50 attack subs for example, but that means only about a third of those at sea at any given time at best, and that's a lot of ocean, even with sensor nets, and ASW aircraft. It's always been a huge challenge. A cheap, numerous, persistent sub-hunting drone could change that.

Do such things exist now? In the prototype stages. But considering the huge lead in time needed to build submarines and keep the nuclear derreent strong (about 15 years), preparations for this eventuality are being made.

The point is, MAD can't be taken for granted. THe US and the USSR looked, and periodically found, successful ways to beat MAD all through the Cold War. The first Air Launched cruise missiles didn't come around because someguy got bored. The somewhat accurate Trident I C4 didn't turn into the staggeringly accurate Trident II D5, a first-strike weapon, because the Pentagon wanted to keep a contractor busy.

The most dangerous thing to do with respect to MAD is to take it as an article of faith. To not want to think about it, look at it, reassess it, for fear of going blind. MAD only worked because the US and Russia/USSR spent a lot of money keeping it working.

Why did I mention drone subs up there? Because consider this.
-As strike weapons, Land based ICBMs are mostly worthless, they're only purpose is to give the other side more things to target.
-Air Launched Cruise Missiles and Gravity Bombs are all dependent on expensive delivery systems that need a major replacement program, and are much slower and less reliabile than a submarine launch missile and a warhead.
-Submarine Launched missiles guarantee MAD more than any other system by far.

if the last item isn't effective or reliable, whiter MAD? That's not to say the US needs a new superweapon or something. It's just to say that resting on our laurels and kneeling before the altar of the MAD Gods for all things Russia-US security is extremely foolhardy. If Russia ever thinks it got MAD beat, they'll absolutely try to make a move.

[Deleted]

Also, who uses words like "Russophobes" in a serious article? Clearly the guy writing the article is not biased in the slightest...

This.

Dumbs words like Russophobia, Islamophobia are red flags for propaganda pieces.

But we should not be surprised about it at this point. When I read the title, I knew it was Ulmita, The Great Shill for Russia who posted it.

[May90]

Its because if you click on the links provided by the article you would see that she did indeed asked for a no fly zone and that she is indeed ready for shit to go down

Well, it is a general style of this kind of articles: they take a bunch of random facts, like this no fly zone proposal, and make far-fetching conclusion, like, "She might push America into a war!". Nothing new here.

It happens to be attitude shared by many, Russians included. Nothing Clinton said suggests otherwise.

Well, then Russians are poorly informed. Because Trump is much more likely to start something crazy like this, than a pragmatic person, which Hillary is.

[Deleted]

It happens to be attitude shared by many, Russians included. Nothing Clinton said suggests otherwise.

That means there are many, many dumb Russians who have no idea about the American presidency, it's impotence and how it functions.

[Ulmita]

This.

Dumbs words like Russophobia, Islamophobia are red flags for propaganda pieces.

But we should not be surprised about it at this point. When I read the title, I knew it was Ulmita, The Great Shill for Russia who posted it.

No, there is a LOT of Russophobia going around both in US government and in general. Only brainwashed and / or braindead people can't see this. Even people from her circles backed away from her retarded Russophobic Hitler argument as you can clear read in the link provided in the article.

[Soeroah]

Hmm. War with Russia, or war with every non-American country.

You lot have a tough choice. At least the Australian election was just who we thought were less petty liars.

[May90]

No, there is a LOT of Russophobia going around both in US government and in general. Only brainwashed and / or braindead people can't see this. Even people from her circles backed away from her retarded Russophobic Hitler argument as you can clear read in the link provided in the article.

Google up what "phobia" means. You might learn something.

[Ulmita]

Well, it is a general style of this kind of articles: they take a bunch of random facts, like this no fly zone proposal, and make far-fetching conclusion, like, "She might push America into a war!". Nothing new here.

You are terribly misinformed / ill-informed. You should ask Skroe what Hillary thinks about Russia. Clinton is one of the biggest hawks ever to walk in the white house and she doesn't hide it either.

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Google up what "phobia" means. You might learn something.

Google up metaphor. You might learn something.