Moscow signals concern for Russians in Estonia

[happyslug]

122. Is any one advocating that today?

Stalin was a bastard, he killed Russians as fast as Estonians. If we want to talk about what Stalin did, how about the Estonians who joined the Germans in WWII? Another Irrelevant group to this discussion.

Until the Ukraine situation, Russia was happy with Estonia being independent (Russia would like Estonia as part of Russia, but Russia is NOT willing to take Estonia by force UNLESS Estonia is being used as a base to attack Russia, Russia knows Estonia can NOT attack Russia, but it can be a base for NATO to attack Russia). Prior to the Ukraine, Putin did nothing to threatens Estonia. Putin mentioned Estonia right after NATO increased it air patrols to and around Estonia and the rest of the Baltic after the coup in the Ukraine.

I suspect the Pentagon has finally told Obama the sad facts of life, Russia right now has retreated so much from what it controlled during the Cold War,that Russia is basically out of reach of most US Conventional forces at the present time. To build up those forces for any attack on Russia the US would need massive bases in the Baltic States, and once those bases were built, Russia would attack to prevent those Bases to be used to attack Russia.

Thus Putin's verbal jab at Estonia appears to have been a warning to the US, that Russia can come up with an excuse to attack if the US build up bases in the Baltic states. In simple terms the comment on Estonia was NOT aimed at Estonia but the US.

For that reason, Obama seems to have embraced diplomatic solution based on those military limitations. Remember the Russian Army of today is no where near the Soviet Army of the 1980s, but it is strong enough launch a preemptive attack to prevent any build up of US Forces in any of the Baltic States. Russia will NOT do so UNLESS that build up becomes clearer, but the increased Air Patrols is a concern to Russia and Putin decided to see if the Pentagon is willing to go to War over RUSSIA denying the Pentagon the ability to build bases in the Baltic States to "Better" to contain Russia. No one in the Pentagon wanted to go to war over bases in the Baltic States, so Obama switched to diplomacy.