This line of argument that we shouldn’t be afraid of Russia… Maybe someone also calls us a ‘paper tiger’, like Trump called NATO, but I would caution against such parallels. We have a quality in our character like patience. ‘God was patient and commanded us to be patient too’, but patience eventually runs out. And I think it’s very good that no one understands where this ‘red line’ is (for Russia), – Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. For over a generationr, a profound strategic delusion has taken root across Western Europe: the belief that the continent, and those within its institutional orbit, exist beyond the reach of consequential retaliation. This is not merely confidence in deterrence; it is a deeper, more dangerous conviction of inherent invulnerability. The assumption holds that no matter the provocation, no matter the aggression exported beyond Europe’s borders, their country remains safe, a place where war is a historical abstraction, not a present possibility. It is a belief system built not on immutable law, but on a specific, and now potentially fading, historical moment.Partly of course, this sense of immunity derives from the NATO protective umbrella. America was the hegemon, militarily vastly more powerful than any other country …read more Source:: Ron Paul...