Epstein Secrets

rd-headed realists have argued that even if Ukraine shrinks with the loss of several autonomous republics (as Georgia did in 2008 when Abkhazia and South Ossetia seceded), the impact on American interests would be limited. They also argue that since it is now clear that no one (other than Russia) is prepared

nd that Serbia be seriously punished for killing its heir apparently could have been satisfied. Russian concerns that its Orthodox brethren in the Balkans could remain independent would have been addressed. Germany would have had no need, or pretext, to respond to mobilizations in Russia and France, s

Moscow got its lease on military facilities in Armenia extended to 2044, and its lease in the breakaway formerly Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by 49 years. Russia's $22 million-a-year lease on the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan that can track Iranian missiles runs out in December. Aze

e a power-sharing deal with the opposition, as a precondition for ending sanctions and ending the associated punitive military campaign. A broader Balkans-like campaign to help depose Assad. In this option, air strikes would also target the heavy weapons that the Syrian army is using to shell cities;

de by that promise is unclear. In 2008, he sent Russian forces into neighboring Georgia, ostensibly to protect the secessionist Georgian enclave of South Ossetia; the real goal was to weaken the pro-Western government in Tbilisi. Russia and the West both have legitimate interests in Ukraine and its future.

furter Rundschau, which had been accusing Americans of "camouflaged neocolonialism," suddenly fretted that the "problems in the Middle East, in the Balkans or in Asia" could not be solved "without U.S. assistance and a president who enjoys respect." The irony was not lost on some observers. A French pu