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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Takeaway from your excellent analysis

We should have kept Sadaam in Iraq

The Baltics are a goner [/quote]

On the first, precisely. Obama's (relative) success in Libya probably got to his head. I mean, the bad guy was overthrown, at the cost of zero American lives and only low ten figures in dollars. There was even an opposition that seemed to have its act together in a way that had NOT been the case when we were first deciding whether to intervene in Syria. Granted, they fell out pretty quickly after Colonel G was overthrown, but c'est la guerre.

Compare and contrast to Bush, who needed four figures worth of American lives lost, five figures worth of Americans physically maimed, high five/low six figures worth of Americans mentally maimed, and low thirteen figures in dollars to get rid of the bad guy in Iraq. Hell that alone kept me in Hillary's camp in November -- that she wouldn't commit an Iraq-level screwup. I mean, the Bush I voted for in 2000 was going to get us OUT of all these foreign entanglements and could also see Putin's soul.

As for the second, not quite. There is a large risk for Putin.

First off, I think Western Europeans regard the Baltics as one of their own in a way that they really don't with Ukraine and especially Georgia. Putin's friends in the West would be hard-pressed to remain so, or to try and point out how Estonia was being so mean to Russia beforehand. I mean, Estonians will give ethnic Russians citizenship if they learn Estonian and swear allegiance to the Estonian government. It'd be like the publication of the Gulag Archipelago was to the reputation of the USSR in Europe -- most outside the most hardcore hardcore stopped really supporting the USSR. 
Second off, Putin runs the risk of triggering Article V for real.
Third off, occupying those countries is pricey.

He may hope for the victory of the Harmony (Latvia) and Centre (Estonia) parties but I don't know if that will happen anytime soon. Both parties are stuck between 20-30% of the vote.

I'm sure we -- or western Europe -- could invest several billion in researching how to more safely transport LNG, which would almost immediately make Putin's pipelines worthless. [/quote]

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