They told Gorbachev, ‘We promise if you agree to a reunited Germany in NATO, NATO will not move—this was Secretary of State James Baker—one inch to t… - Stephen F. Cohen

There’s a golden moment now to be had for everybody’s security, and it’s been thwarted by this mindless… I mean, you can hate on Trump all you want, but there’s got to be a higher priority and that’s got to be international American security, and we’re letting that opportunity slip away, I fear.

What Putin came to power to do was to modernize Russia, and that does not involve a cold war with the West. Period. End of story. That’s his mission. He wants to go down in history as the man who did this. Cold war, not to mention hot war, is spoiling what he sees as his mission.

The ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty), by prohibiting wide deployment of anti-missile defense installments... had long guaranteed equal security based on the underlying principles of MAD {Mutual Assured Destruction] and parity. Bush’s abolition of the treaty in effect nullified those principles and signified Washington’s quest for nuclear superiority over Russia...