The Long Game

Blogging at Instapundit, Elizabeth Price Foley writes about Putin's courting of the Greek socialist PM as follows:

Reagan won the Cold War, in part, by playing a long game designed to bankrupt the Soviet Union. It seems Putin now has similar aims, using the profligacy of European socialist countries such as Greece as a long-term weapon. Such profligacy holds the potential to bankrupt the EU if it continues to cave to political pressure to bailout Greece and similar entitlement-driven economies. And if EU resists the pressure and refuses further bailouts, Russia will undoubtedly swoop in with offers of “assistance” to leaders more interested in keeping entitlements flowing than defending and preserving their countries’ freedom and democracy.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we hand out “free” (tax-supported) stuff and get citizens addicted. This is why the founders’ philosophy of individualism, not socialist communitarianism, works to sustain freedom and democracy.

We have to hope Putin can't afford to become Greece's "benefactor." Addiction to free stuff is the problem in Argentina, too.