ltlee1, <news:134fa3d3-eb8a-4b39-a81f-f8249819e49bn@googlegroups.com>

> "Only a "ruined" Russia can ensure peace on NATO's eastern flank in
> the near future, a senior European defense official has said, as
> Kyiv's Western allies look to recalibrate their wartime strategy
> after a disappointing 2023.
>
> "Russia needs to walk away with the understanding that they lost,
> that they will lose the next war," Kusti Salm-the permanent secretary
> at the Estonian Defense Ministry-told Newsweek in an exclusive
> interview from Tallinn.

For the Baltic governments, also Poland, the aggressive and
bold anti-Russia stance is a way to increase their role/status
within the Atlanticist hierarchy. More attention from the US,
and also an opportunity to obtain more Atlanticist money under
the pretext of "countering" Russia. So their politicians seek
to show themselves off like "little but very stinky" (while
business people there have pretty strong links to Russia btw).

Poland isn't little, but their political class keeps an old
complex in front of Germanic "true" Europe and shows symptoms
similar to the Baltics' ones. Other East European countries
are more balanced, but, for their governments, the prospect to
get certain benefits through antagonism with Russia also can
make some sense (then they would have to compete with Poland
and Baltics for American attention and money). And without the
basic contradiction between the Atlanticism and Russia, the
whole East Europe would be much less important.

What's driving "the true West". I see it so that after the end
of the USSR, the Atlanticism set itself a mode that requires
"expansion drug". It needs to interfere somewhere militarily
and/or expand its hegemony somewhere. This external mode helps
maintain internal modes within the US and West Europe. Recent
attempts at self-satisfaction (Afghanistan, Syria) were not so
successful, and the Ukraine case gives them one more chance.