Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
I've heard several Russian Generals, politicians and academicians speaking on Voice of Russia describe the U.S. as an international bully, going from country to country and kicking out any government that displeases us in order to replace it with a puppet of our making. To them, NATO is nothing more than the tool the American Empire uses to add the troops of supplicant allies to our own.

I don't think this is propaganda tossed out for domestic consumption. This is the way the world looks from Moscow.

Since Syria is their last ally in the region, it seems safe to assume that any U.S./NATO/European involvement to topple Assad would almost certainly be met with a strong Russian effort to keep him in power.
Russia has been consistent in its opposition to the creation of a European missile defense shield. Concessions have been made, it is true, but the project has not been abandoned. Given that the likelihood of the creation of an effective missile defense shield is somewhere between the likelihood of discovering a cure for AIDS and the successful manufacture of a time machine (in all seriousness, it’s a pipe dream) one can understand why the Russians might view its continued pursuit as a recipe and possibly even a euphemism for escalation.

So here you have the Russians with a not totally unfounded concern in regards to the nuclear balance of power. It so happens that their sole Mediterranean port is in Syria. Anyone who thinks a nation in that situation is not going to do everything in its power—which in this case amounts to no more than (not) casting a vote—to block a U.N. resolution which calls for regime change in Syria is on crack.