DO NOT BE DELUDED THE COLD WAR IS NOT OVER!

When the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union apparently collapsed everyone assumed the Cold War between Russia(USSR) and the USA was over.
Wrong, the Soviet Union collapse was a financial debacle because the dictators thought they could keep up with the USA in the arms race, but since they were a totalitarian country with no free enterprise incentive they were not able to generate enough GDP to stay in Reagan's race to dominance.
But the KGB members just changed their uniforms and mannerisms for business suits and tried to begin a quasi-free Enterprise system.

There were cronies associated with the government a few oligarchs that became billionaires off profits from the vast mineral deposits and oil supplies that are found in the large land mass that is Russia.
But the average person. The so called middle class never really developed to sustain the conversion to a real Free Enterprise system.

In 1991 Yeltsin came to power with a wave of high expectations. On 12 June 1991 he was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with 57% of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president. But Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s. The Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, economic collapse, and enormous political and social problems. By the time he left office, Yeltsin had an approval rating of two percent by some estimates.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Yeltsin, vowing to transform Russia's socialist command economy into a free market economy, endorsed price liberalization and privatization programs. Due to corruption and other factors, a good deal of the national wealth fell into the hands of a relatively small group of people. Source:Wikapedia

Today as President Obama pays a visit to the Kremlin to talk nice with President Mevedev, he is talking with the "puppet" of KGB member Vladimir Putin. The real power and aspiring dictator of the Russian people.
In his talks we can assume that Obama will try to smooth over the animus that the Russian leadership has for America. The talk will be pleasant, but all the promises will be for naught if we really think that Putin and his KGB fellow travelers will co-operate in any effort to accommodate the USA!

For decades the Russian leadership and via the propaganda network of government controlled media, the Russian people, are hateful and jealous of US Americans.

The one thing that stands out in all the speeches and news that comes from Russia is that they blame the USA for their problems. Not the degradation caused by Communism and lack of Religion in the country. The Daily Der Spiegel has a revealing article in today's issue that reveals the attitude toward the USA. The following quote should give some insight as to how Russia feels about any concessions or demand( more like requests from Obama) will be received.

"Putin's explicit goal upon assuming power in 2000 was to reverse as much as possible of the geopolitical imbalance imposed upon Russia during the 1990s. He believes that in that decade of Russia's extreme financial weakness, the country effectively lost its sovereignty. The US and its NATO allies, he argued, used the opportunity to re-constitute the world order over Russia's head. They expanded NATO eastward and reshaped other international institutions to serve their agenda. They treated Russia's domestic economic, political and social policies as their own project, engaging in a crusade to shape Russia in their own image for their own interests. Putin's priority during his tenure as president, from 2000-2008, was to reverse the West's leverage over Russia".

"It would be a mistake to believe that the Russians will view any concessions that Obama makes as something that requires counter-concessions on their part. The Russians will be happy to use US concerns about Iran or arms control to elicit concessions if they can. But they will not consider themselves bound by any "deal." Stationing of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, admission of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and Western involvement in the North Caucasus -- none of these are bargaining chips for the Russians. They oppose them without qualification, and they are non-negotiable".

It is not hard for me to come to the conclusion that the Russians see the softness in the U.S. president by observing his willingness to allow North Korea to provoke war with their violation of the ban on nuclear weapons and their firing of at least 12 missiles in the last few weeks. His willingness to talk to Iranian leadership without any preconditions is also a sign of his timidity toward foreign threats even though he is quick to use intimidation within our own country to establish his socialistic goals.The firing of the special prosecutor over the telephone,and the way he intimidated bond holders of Chrysler Corp. are just a few examples.

In the negotiations going in Moscow, both sides seemed to try to skirt a dispute that should be discussed but could have derailed the summit — the fate of an American missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, which was proposed by the Bush administration.

American officials have said the system is intended to ward off attacks from countries like Iran, but the Kremlin views it as a threat to Russia.How can a missile defense system intended to defend against incoming attacks be a treat? This is just so much verbal bovine excrement!

Before the summit meeting, Mr. Medvedev asserted that the United States would have to compromise on the system before Russia would sign off on an arms control agreement.

All this tells me that the Cold War is still on, we just do not recognize it as such, or we choose to ignore it at our own peril!