A resurgent Russia challenges US as Obama fails foreign policy test

by J Michael Waller / Investor’s Business Daily / September 5, 2013.

US meekness in the face of Russian assertiveness is a danger to international stability and American security, because it can be misunderstood and unwittingly invite a mistaken response.

“Provocative weakness is a state in which you look weak, and you inadvertently provoke Russia, and others who mean you ill, into thinking they can grab something for nothing.” That’s how American Foreign Policy Council President Herman Pirchner characterized US policy in my article for Investor’s Business Daily.

The article appeared September 5.

From accelerated strategic nuclear modernization to aggressive espionage that works hand-in-hand with criminal elements, Russian behavior is passing by without any visible US objection.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden told me, “”When they’re stealing money or private intellectual property, that’s not accepted international practice. We have a right to be angry, and to hold Russia to certain standards of behavior.”

“All states conduct espionage,” says Hayden. “But what we see in Russia is an awful lot of cyberespionage done by what I would call hired guns, criminal gangs.”

US silence, Hayden says, is a danger to the national interest. “It flies in the face of our president’s very deeply felt commitment to move toward a nuclear-free world,” the former CIA chief said. “Here we have the Cold War adversary … trying to modernize their strategic weapons. ”