So everybody is talking about this $1 million challenge posted by Russian Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin on his Twitter for someone to “prove that NATO is not pursuing military planning against Russia.”  Don’t bother trying to win, as Julia Ioffe points out, “Conveniently, it doesn’t matter whether Rogozin possesses such a sum because Rogozin a) believes beyond a doubt that NATO is in fact out to attack Russia, and b) was asking a rhetorical question.“

Blogger Luke Johnson makes a good point that NATO can barely keep its guys together on a nasty campaign in Afghanistan, so any idea of actually entering conflict with Russia is ludricrously far-fetched.  I can appreciate how the hawks in the Kremlin dislike NATO expansion and seek to curb it by talking about war, but really the interests are more in terms of political influence in the region than any realistic scenario of conflict.  Seriously, Russia – look what happened after the invasion of Georgia: squat!  Could there be any greater acid test to prove that there exists no desire, grounds, expediency, or political will on behalf of NATO members to attack Russia?