August 24, 2008 (LPAC)--The United States should "shelve loose talk about bringing either Ukraine or Georgia into NATO," and cut the bombast and rhetoric about Russia, USC international relations professor Ronald Steel writes in today's New York Times. "Washington had better start treating it [Russia] like the great power it is," Steel urges. "The limits of Russia's post-cold-war retreat have apparently been reached, and the reversal of the power equation has gone too far to be sustained. Today's leaders in Moscow are determined to protect what they perceive as their vital interests." Washington should instead "work out a modus vivendi...[and] tone down the bombast and restore a dialogue with Russia."

Steel concludes by referring to John Quincy Adams's wisdom on these matters: "It might be wise to recall the warning of John Quincy Adams in 1821, that by going `abroad in search of monsters to destroy' to support the territorial ambitions of others, the United States would `involve herself beyond the power of extraction in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.' "