Russia amassing troops at borders in challenge to NATO

CPT Ahmed Faried - That would've been a legitimate rebuttal, however, in 2012 the snotty response person was running on a record of winning the war on terrorism, killing Bin Laden and decimating Al Queada. Then in early 2014 he misjudged the threat of ISIS, so I really doubt he had any intention of having a legitimate debate on how Russia is for the first time influencing Middle East politics and policies, by our refusal to admit the threat they impose on the region and world.

SFC (Join to see) - A bit of a goal post shift there. In the context the question was asked. President Obama was/is right. The biggest geo-political threat to America is not Russia. For the why I'd refer you against to my original article. If we were a European country we'd have the double whammy of having both terrorism and Russia as a geo-political threat. Geographically, they are gobbling up tracts of land that belong to sovereign countries creating political facts on the ground that can affect cross border relationships, economies, etc hence geo-political. For us, this isn't as big a factor, terrorism however is, and for the reason why, again see my previous response. So in saying that Russia was a GP threat Pres. Obama was right. Now we can bring up existential threat and that is closer to the truth but we are an existential threat to Russia as much as they would be to us (nukes). Russia's threat to the world is in its ability to use its vast nuclear arsenal to play a game of chicken with NATO. In that you are right that they are using that as a shield to cover their annexation of places like Abkhazia or South Ossetia. But again, unless they have plans on Alaska, their behavior in their region is a geopolitical threat more to our allies in region than it is to us.

CPT Ahmed Faried - But he was not right. He had a snotty arrogant dismissive answer that is still being followed. Russia has incurred on our airspace and waters in the west and was doing so at the time. Russia was also attempting to influence Iran and have a stronghold in the Middle East. Geo-political threat is a threat to our interests not our nation.
He doesn't think terrorism is as clear as a threat as global warming and climate change. These are all facts. More to the case he has a failed foreign policy that has resulted in the first death of an ambassador since 1979 when the second worse foreign policy president was in office. You can talk about shifting goal post all day long, but the fact remains, a threat to Western Europe and our allies is a threat to us, a threat to our interests and allies in the Middle East is a threat to us, and a threat at our western border is a threat to us. It is apparent your love for the president is clouding the discussion here as he has said several times in the years since that climate change is a greater geo-political threat than Russia or terrorism.

SFC (Join to see) - Sergeant; Three minor points:

[1] The Crimea is/was in the Ukraine so saying incursions into the Ukraine and Crimea is NOT mentioning two different "incursions". (Toss in the referendum in the Crimea which strongly supported separating from the Ukraine and rejoining Russia and even "incursion" gets a bit dicey.)

[2] The Russians see their actions as as much "Containment" as the US sees Russian actions as "Aggression" and the Russians see the US actions as as much "Aggression" as the US sees American actions as "Containment".

and

[3] The Russians HAVE NOT intruded into "American Air Space" although they have flown aircraft inside the American Air Defense Identification Zone which the scare mongers in the US government and media have described as "incursions" in order to advance their own agendas. The Russians are conducting "normal training operations" when they fly into the American declared ADIZ - just as the USAF and USN are conducting "normal training operations" when they fly into the Russian (or Chinese) declared ADIZ.

PS - It is highly likely that "climate change" IS a greater threat to civilization than any other threat - and that's simply because "climate change" simply doesn't care who wins in any political pissing contest.

Not really. What NATO country has Russia attacked? None. Russia is trying to create a firewall by absorbing or attempting to absorb border nations to NATO. The sooner NATO fast tracks bids by Georgia and others to join the alliance the sooner Russia can be deterred.

The Ukraine was never a part of NATO, so I don't see why anyone believes NATO should have done something.

NATO is building up troops in Poland and other Baltic States, Russia is just reacting to the threat. Remember that Cold War organization known as the Warsaw pact? Now Warsaw is protected by NATO, and not only has Russia lost most of it's buffer states, those states are now members of NATO. Can't blame Russia for being a little uncomfortable.

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen - Colonel; You have it almost right. Back in the "good old Cold War days" what actually happened was that "they" MASSED TROOPS while "we" CONDUCTED EXERCISES.

As far as a "change in ideology" is concerned, "Russia" has always been concerned about what it considered to be the safety of its borders. This dates back to roughly 885 (or 1453 if you want to take a more conservative look at the situation).