Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
Again: the US-centric viewpoint is truly bizarre. This is not the US facing off with Russia and needing to rally European support. Europe is the target of the threat, not the US. Europe has the economic leverage, not the US. Europe has the capacity to contain Russia: this is not the battered Europe of the 1950s that we're talking about, it's a major modern group of states with economic clout that simply dwarfs anything the Russians can bring to bear. I certainly think the US should support Europe as requested, within reason, but why does the discourse here always try to place the US in a center stage role? Is this not just a reflexive reversion to Cold War patterns of thought?
I largely agree, but I disagree that "Europe" is threatened. And the lack of a real threat is what limits the enthusiasm to wrestle with Russia. Unlike the United States, Europeans are just not that much into the "containment" thing.

A former USSR country in geographic Europe, but outside of EU or NATO had and has its sovereignty violated.
Maybe Europeans are just more defensive; actions are not considered to be equally bad when they violate formal allies or not.
The expectation seems to be that U.S. governments are equally angered by both if only the perpetrator is a designated baddie. South Ossetia should have disproved this ambition in the context of Russia, but apparently it did not.

One or two more such cases and the U.S. might be called a paper tiger, which in turn might lead to another stupid war just to prove something.