Zbigniew Brzezinski: NATO should deploy forces in Central Europe

An American politologist calls on the world to show a decisive reaction to Russia's intervention in Crimea

A former national security adviser said to CNN about Russia's intervention in Ukraine:

“In effect, Putin has claimed the right to intervene in Ukraine itself, to intervene militarily by force.

And the Crimean scenario may be a preview of what he's planning, namely that in some of the eastern regions of Ukraine, which are inhabited by Russian-speaking Ukrainians, some of whom are favorable to Moscow, riots could be staged, they could be provoked by Moscow. And then Russian troops would enter. And that envisions what we have to now deter, prevent, discourage.

And it seems to me that we have to take a stand publicly, offering Russia some sort of participation in an overall international effort to help stabilize the Ukrainian economy and so forth; but privately, at the same time, we have to warn Russia very explicitly as to what might be the negative consequences of Russia in effect attacking Ukraine.

And these consequences have to be very serious because, otherwise, some years from now, we will be regretting failure to act the way we regretted the failure to act after Munich in 1938 and 1939, and we know what followed.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski said NATO should have plans regarding the deployment of forces in Central Europe to give Russia to understand that the West will respond if the war spreads.