Ret. Gen. Clark: Our Allies See Us ‘Backing Away’ from Confrontation

EXCERPT:

CLARK: "Well, from the beginning, Vladimir Putin has threatened horrific consequences. We just had the Iranians threaten Israel with basically the same thing the other day. When you say unimaginable consequences, that’s nuclear weapons. And some of Vladimir Putin's lieutenants have been even more explicit in this. So, nobody wants a nuclear war, sure. Nobody wants a confrontation, sure. But you can’t just keep backing away from this. These countries in eastern Europe, in the Baltics, Poland, Romania, they know what it feels like to be under the Russian boot heel and they don’t want it again, and they are looking to the United States and they see us backing away and saying, 'Oh, no, no confrontation.' They are saying, 'Okay, well, there is a legal treaty, but is the United States really willing to confront Vladimir Putin when he threatens nuclear weapons?' What about our nuclear weapons? Why isn't he scared of our nuclear weapons. We need to really think this thing through because for 30 years, since the Cold War ended, we have sort of been on the glide path that was comfortable, it was nice, we were the sole super power. That is a bygone era. We are now under challenge from this group of nations that want to erode our ability to help lead the world, they are willing to use force, and they are willing to rely on the nuclear threat."