No easy way out

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday blamed U.S. policy for inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons to defend themselves from an "almost uncontained use of military force." Putin criticized the U.S. for many things, including "unilateral, illegitimate actions," and a plan for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

*This was our response.

Now, Putin has never been a close ally of ours, so this is no real surprise. And he is likely just acting in his own interest here. And he has a history of unilateral, uncontained use of military force, so his words now seem a tad hypocritical. But let's go over his argument anyway.

Putin said it was "the almost uncontained hyper-use of force in international relations" that was forcing countries opposed to Washington to seek to build up nuclear arsenals.

"It is a world of one master, one sovereign. ... It has nothing to do with democracy. This is nourishing the wish of countries to get nuclear weapons," he said.

"This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," Putin told the gathering.

Let's look at recent history: We didn't like Afghanistan. We knew they didn't have nuclear capabilities, so we bombed them, invaded, and took out the government. We didn't like Iraq. We knew they didn't have nuclear capabilities, so we bombed them, invaded, and took out the government. We didn't like North Korea. We know they do have nuclear capabilities. We left them alone. The lesson from this that Iran has learned? If you don't want to get invaded, you'd better get yourself some nuclear weapons.

Is Iran justified in developing nuclear weapons? Not really. Nukes are pretty useless as a defensive weapon. The only thing they could need them for would be to use against Israel. But we let Israel develop their own nuclear weapons program. And we aren't exactly planning to give up our nuclear arsenal.

Since this was the Russian President criticizing American foreign policy, and I just watched Rocky IV, I'd like to draw some parallels here. Only in this case, we are the unbeatable robot played by Dolph Lundgren.

We could continue escalating our war on terror But after about the 5th round, they might start to come back. Soon, we get cut, and once they see that we're not invincible, and it's a whole new fight. And if they ever start to win over the crowd/rest of the world, then it's over for us.

As I learned in another great/terrible movie from the same decade, the only winning move in nuclear warfare is not to play. If we don't want other countries to increase their military capabilities, then we've got to stop doing it ourselves first. What I'm trying to say is that if I can change and you can change; everybody can change.