EXPLAINING THE NEW COLD WAR – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:24 A.M. ET:   Russia is an adversary again.  But wait.  Didn't the Cold War end?  Didn't we win?  Janet Daley, one of the best commentators around, examines that issue for London's Telegraph.  Here is her take:

The mistake, of course, was to think that the Cold War was about what it suited all the parties to present it as being: an ideological argument, a battle of ideas, a contest between philosophies of how men should live. As it turns out, it was actually about what unfashionable historians believed all wars were fought for: territory and power.

Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer, does not present his case for annexing Crimea and destabilising the government in Kiev as a crusade on behalf of the proletariat, or a struggle against the evil forces of international capital. There is no theory of the betterment of the human condition involved here, or any prescription for a superior form of society which would bring justice to the world. It is just a land grab justified on the basis of racial identity.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry has described this Russian aggression as a “19th-century war”, a throwback to undisguised imperialism. Maybe the conceit of our time was that the 20th century had got beyond this: that its disputes were based on profound and sincere disagreements about value systems.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  Obama and Kerry can think of themselves as "progressive" and "21st century," but the world will not cooperate.  We are once again being sold a military drawdown on the grounds that we no longer need large standing forces.  Right.  Where have you heard that before?  And how did it turn out?

April 20, 2014