President Obama issued an executive order blocking importation of Saiga rifles and shotguns. Bob Owens has all the gory details over at Bearing Arms. I have mixed feelings about the issue, because I believe in punishing the Russians with sanctions for their actions in Ukraine. I’d also like to punish them by redeploying several armored divisions to Poland, but that’s not in this President’s nature.
But the other side of the coin is that this move screws two enemies with the stroke of a single pen. Putin is the one enemy, and we’re the other. It’s awfully convenient, don’t you think?
We just have to wait and see if this “sanction” is removed when the rest are or if it’s the one that is allowed to stay in place indefinitely.
Just like China’s Norinco products ban was lifted after the dust settled. Oh wait, not really.
You do realize that the Army has removed all of its tanks from Germany (and shipped them back to CONUS)? There’s something like an eighth as many American troops in Germany compared to the height of the Cold War.
Yes. And absent a resurgent bear, I’m fine with that arrangement. But with a resurgent bear, I’d like to assure our allies the Poles that we have their back, and make sure Putin realizes that too.
Heh, the Poles know our promises are worthless with the current admin. That’s why they’re uparming just as fast as they possible can. They’ve basically got the largest defense budget in Europe at the moment and it’s only going up.
Good! We shouldn’t have any troops in any country unless we are fighting an actively declared war.
Let Poland defend Poland.
I’m sure a lot of people believed that in 1939 too.
And they’d be right. Not out fight. We defeated Hitler and got Stalin instead. That’s what interventionism gets you. More war and more death.
There’s no such thing as “not our fight” in the modern world. A Japanese flotilla destroying the vast majority of our Pacific fleet being a prime example. Taking no side means surrendering to evil, or making other people do your dirty work. In our case, there’s no one else who will do our dirty work. It’s us or no one. I’m not wiling throw the Poles to the wolves, or the Bear, in this case.
This vet has no issue with our country getting involved in defending our interests abroad, but let’s go about it the right way. These open-ended unilateral actions by current and former presidents with no regard for the legislature reminds me of another time in history where leaders waged their own personal campaigns against the state’s enemies. But at least back then the Caesars had the balls to travel to the field themselves.
There’s a happy medium between isolationism and intervening everywhere even when we have no interest. At the moment the pendulum is far to close to the intervene everywhere side of the equation.
Working in DoD, wars are good for my bank account. At the same time I have a lot of friends in the military. Since our service members volunteer to do the dirty dangerous work for the rest of us, I think we owe it to them to use their services as sparingly as possible and only when it’s truly a vital national interest….
Apparently you’re unfamiliar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
ASDF: Apparently you are not familiar with some of your US history. Please the see contributions of Casmir Pulaski (father of the American Calvary) who died during the American Revolution and helped the Continental Army during the Siege of Savannah by the Redcoats. He died there too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski
Or perhaps Thad Kosciuszko who also helped fortify West Point and fought for the Continental Army during the Revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosciuszko
Let’s not forget contributions from Lech Walesa and JP II (among others like Ronald Reagan, etc.) in helping bring down the Iron Curtain.
Finally, more recently Poland contributed forces to the Coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan – whether you agree with those wars or not, the point is they did not stand by and do nothing – but joined the US.
http://icasualties.org/Iraq/Nationality.aspx
http://icasualties.org/OEF/Nationality.aspx
Poland is not some fly-by-night ally…it contributed to the US from the very beginning to the founding of this country.
“Let Poland defend Poland.”
The logical conclusion to that line of thought is the dissolution of NATO, which would then logically lead to states like Poland getting nukes. Without a credible security alliance, it makes complete sense to obtain a nuclear deterrent capability. Ukraine and Georgia have been object lessons in what happens to states near major powers that lack security guarantees and WMD capabilities.
Counterproliferation has been a bedrock of US policy since the end of WW2. Do we suddenly think it is a good idea to encourage countries like Poland, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, and so on to “uparm” to gain nuclear deterrents of their own so that we can take our ball and go home?
I wouldn’t waste a single American Dollar defending a country that has no strategic value to our nation. If Russia wants Ukraine so bad they can have it. They both have shrinking populations and faulty economies. Besides, I don’t see the Russians being careless enough to actually do something that would prod the U.S.A. to military action.
“The Obama Administration imposed a new round of sanctions against Russian oil, natural gas” but not coal? Russian coal is being bought (ie in New Hampshire), largely because of [rail] transport problems but also because it burns cleaner and hotter.
Foreign policy is one area where I don’t second guess politicians. They have classified intel, we don’t.
How’d that workout in Iraq?
Several armored divisions? At this point in our downward trend in power there aren’t several armored divisions. We can send several stryker brigades with machine guns.