i was a young major back then. i consider myself a cold war era i spent 12 years at different times in europe. and we didn t know what was happening when the wall came down. there was this great momentum building toward it, and when it finally happened and there was this rush of east germans into west germany through the gates that had been closed and kilometer zones between the two countries up to that point, it was challenging for a long time in 1989. truthfully whee went off to war under george bush. there were a quarter of a million u.s. soldiers in germany in 1989. some of us went to war, president bush sent us to iraq for desert storm. and then later on during an assignment in germany when i came back to command there in 2007, it was a completely different environment with the nations that had formerly been part of the par saw pact now
ukrainian government before their presidential elections and third, what they ve also got to do, reassure the nato allies, particularly the smaller allies that used to be part of the soviet union and those members previously of the war saw pact and reaffirm the collective defense of nato, ie., putin needs to know those countries are off limits. those are the three elements of the obama strategy that s developing. how about your assessment, the grander question of putin? certainly he has nostalgia for the old order, greater russia but he s no hitler. where would you place him in terms of his aggressiveness? his willingness to go in bringing back the captive nations, wouldn t go that far, would he? is this the limit of where he s going to go with crimea? putin is two things, a
nation state of the palestinian people, we need you to say that israel is the jewish the state of the nation state of the jews, has less religious tone. we know you to say the jews belong here too. he thinks that s kinds of a guarantee, once they get over that intellectual or emotional hump, they will say, okay, this is not just colonial experiment from the west. these guys are from here too. i don t know how you change people s minds but that s the theory. the thing about the 67 war, the soldiers going in from egypt and everywhere else and kill all the men and rape the women these wars were exist ent shal. but what obama says and what kerry says and israelis say, look, it s the palestinians are almost there in terms of