A True Shock? Economist Jeffrey Sachs Reveals Secret at Heart of U.S.-Russian Relations

LTC Trent Klug - In reality, The Marshell Plan made Allies out of former enemies. A bit of a helping hand, or at least not actively intervening in the effort to revitalize their economy, could have brought Russia into the Western fold. I look at things from a different side than Sachs, but we certainly agree on the outcome.
I joined the Army in the early eighties after we have been embarrassed and humiliated by the Iranians, had Cubans in Central America, and 30,000 Warsaw tanks across the Wire in West Germany. Through that period and Desert Storm, I feel that we were the good guys. Now I didn't agree with all policy, Saddam was always a monster and even tacit support was wrong, and I didn't trust the Saudis, but I even understood that intervening on their behalf was in our best interest at the time. The Balkans lost me. We could have intervened in Croatia as a neutral party and stopped the anti-Serbian actions of the Croats and probably stopped the bloodshed there, but instead we started picking sides. You know where that lead. The bombing in Belgrade was the event that pushed me towards non-intervention and had me questioning if we still worn the White Hat. I question that a lot today.
I still love the Army and I try to do everything in power to stop my brothers and sisters in arms from dying in senseless wars.

You both make some excellent comments. I lean in Larry's direction. We could have done better with the Soviets, but it's mostly moot. The real glaring mistakes were made in the Slavic region. Time will tell. One thing IS certain: Iran needs to be reined in or the entire Middle East could wind up under the mullahs' control . . .

MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. The Slavs have longer memories than the Middle East as a whole.

I agree about Iran. Had a certain unnamed president actually verbalized support back in the early 10's, perhaps they'd already be reigned in.

MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. - There is still a significant anti-slavic attitude in a lot of Western Europe, I've never understood it. It all relates back to the Schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Church, which I have also read and don't understand either. However, the NATO's side was that the backwards Serbians held a 400 year old grudge instead of acknowledging the fact that all of the Breakaway Republics had one thing in Common, they were all former NAZI or Fascist allies of Germany or Italy and their treatment of the Jews and Serbians was horrible.

The Middle East was and still is a Quagmire that we should stay out of as much as possible. There really aren't any moderates, how many Iranians where involved in 9/11? As I stated above, I have never trusted the Saudis and if you look at Afghanistan and 9/11, we should have started the bombings in Islamabad.