Gates continued, “And I think it would be frankly harmful to Russia’s interests in Europe to unilaterally suspend or withdraw from this treaty [the INF], in terms of the sense of security and reassurance in Europe of the predictability of the future.”
U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan commands the European Command and he wants to curtail plans to reduce U.S. forces in Europe. He said: “In this era of persistent conflict, we have some fault lines that are there in the European Command (area of responsibility) that we have to pay attention to. We don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of a resurgent Russia.”
Finally, the day after the dressing down by President Putin, U.S. Secretary of State Rice said:
“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.”
She added, “I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma.”
What’s next? We’ll have to wait and see….
Related:
Putin Says Nyet
http://johnibii.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/putin-again-nyet-to-us-misile-defense/
and
Cold War Redux
http://johnibii.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/is-mr-putin-listening/
and
Kremlinology 101 Redux
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