Oh come on, surely you know about Georgia, Chechnya, Crimea, pressure on the Baltics, etc, and now Syria.

So what is your point? Yes, I know some things about those countries as well as some things about a lot of other countries. Again, do you have a point or just an uncontrollable reflex  to try to shout down, without any coherent connection to my blog, an idea you don’t like because it does not put 100% of the blame for international hostilities onto Russia and actually suggests diplomacy might be a better way to stop Russia from doing something that our country has also done since its creation.

" Do I give a shit about Russian strategic interests when they involve keeping people under their thumb?"

 Your jingo bells are ringing loud and clear but they are playing a discordant song. Do you have any concept of irony?

"You're pissed at the US I guess from your military days and that's where it lies."

I had some experiences in the military which have caused me to pay attention to how wars get started, how they are carried out, and what story about them is presented back home. What I have learned and continue to see about that subject does piss me off. You got that part right.

Putin is described as a bully and he probably is when being one can serve his purpose and when he can get away with it. Obama said he told Putin to cut it out and he did. If that is the truth then Putin can be influenced and so it is right now, before either side does more of the same and pushes tensions higher, that is the time when he might possibly go back to Putin and say, "OK, this shit is either going to get better or it is going to get worse. Lets not be bound by the past which we cannot change but rather lets look to the future and to doing the work of making things better."  Then he could suggest an agreement. He could say that he promises in the name of the U.S.A not to try to influence Russia's choice of leaders with any actions internal to Russia if they promise to have the same respect for us and not to try to influence our choice of leaders. The same conversation could include any threat he felt like using as to what Russia could expect if they meddled in our elections again. Putin may be a rat but pushing him against a wall is probably not the smartest way to deal with him.  

 If you don't have illusions about America's saintliness, and I don't think you do, why do you call it false equivalence when it is pointed out correctly that both countries do the same thing. That equivalence is real regarding both countries meddling or maybe you are still holding to your assertion that we don't meddle in Russia's internal affairs or maybe I confused the issue by using the phrase "internal affairs" which is a broad enough area to find exceptions to argue about and/or reasons to justify some things we have done. I should have referred only to meddling in each other's elections as that is actually the narrower but closely related subject.  

 I do not try to beautify Russia so as to raise it above the U.S. but I do not see the value of only smearing them with tar and never letting up which has the effect, intended or not, to squelch any conversation that might suggest cooperating with them where we can and trying to build on that cooperation instead of continuing on the historical arc of confrontation that has led every "most-powerful nation on earth", which always meant they had the baddest ass military ever in history up until the time they didn't, to start one too many wars until they finally lost one. There is a sense in which we have not lost any war yet, but when is the last time we won one.