Michael Johns  

Conservative writer and Republican strategist Michael Johns, a former White House speechwriter and Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst, said today that Russia's ongoing military aggression against Georgia potentially represents a major threat to the global peace that has largely characterized the last 17 years of post-Cold War era relations between Washington and Moscow. Decisive American diplomatic, humanitarian and potentially military responses are warranted, he says, to ensure the defense of Georgia's territorial integrity and its promising and successful democratically-elected government, led by President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Most concerning in Russia's recent aggression, Johns says, is that it appears to represent a return to the expansionist and militarily aggressive tactics that characterized Moscow's foreign policy during the Cold War, and that Russia likely views its current aggression in Georgia as a test case for whether such regional aggression will be resisted or tolerated by the United States and its allies. As with Georgia, which has proven an ally of the United States and western democracies in recent years, Moscow has developed a cantankerous relationship with Ukraine, another democratic ally of the United States that borders Russia. This past spring, for instance, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin threatened to "dismember" the Ukranian peninsula of Crimea.

Johns will discuss his support for President George W. Bush's response earlier today to Russia's regional aggression, along with other current events topics, this evening, August 13, 2008, from 9pm EDT/6pm PDT to 10:30pm EDT/7:30pm PDT, during his weekly appearance on BlogTalkRadio's The Warren Michaels show. The broadcast is available live and by replay in most nations of the world at: The Warren Michaels show.