Biden was right.

[DCBob]

Russia poses challenge to Obama
By BEN SMITH | 11/26/08 4:45 AM EST

Joe Biden has warned that hostile nations would quickly "test" the young new president with a "generated crisis," and Biden seems to have been right. But the challenge didn't come from the part of the world Obama spent the most of his campaign discussing, the broader Middle East. On the day after he won the election, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offered an aggressive warning that he would respond to a planned NATO anti-missile shield by moving nuclear weapons to its western enclave of Kaliningrad. And the sword-rattling has continued: Tuesday, the Russian navy began joint exercises near Caracas with Venezuela's military.

more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15674.html
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Unfortunately Biden was very right. We shall see how our new president handles this in a couple of months. I suspect he will deal with it fine and with no drama.

[dkf]

1. Its too bad that oil money gave Russia an attitude again.

Now they need to flex their muscles.

[DCBob]

2. Indeed. They have Europe & the US by the short hairs due to their control of major oil supplies.

The Russian bear has awakened.

[dkf]

6. That is why I think people who aren't completely sold by Solar and

Wind are crazy.

[pampango]

8. Even worse than the influx of oil money is that now it has declined dramatically

which may lead their government to take measures to "make a statement" before their economy goes too far downhill.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n22/gess01_.html

"If oil prices fall too low and the rouble fails, as it did in 1986 (though this was kept secret) and in 1998, and if the coal miners go on strike again because they haven’t been paid and block the trans-Siberian Railway, savings will be wiped out. This would be a national humiliation – something more destabilising to regimes, as the Putinists know, than mere economic collapse."

[Mass]

3. Hopefully, Obama will recognize the stupidity of anti-missile shields.

The best experts on Russia when it comes to Eastern Europe understand that the last moves of the Bush administration and their aggressive attitude against Russia has led to this conflict.

Let just imagine the roles were reversed and that Russia wanted to install anti-missile shields in Mexico. How do you think the US would answer?

[Thrill]

4. People get bold when they know your country is in an economic cisis

and you're already stretched too much fighting two wars

[dkf]

7. Russia isn't in great shape either.

I'd say they are in worse shape than we are. Have you seen the Russian stock market? I think its down 80% YTD. Crazy.

[happychatter]

5. Biden didn't use the words "young" OR "inexperienced"... that's an MSM meme and untrue

"It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America."

His exact words

[Jennicut]

9. Yup. Gotta love the MSM.