If some lunatic shows up at your front door in the middle of the night and threatens to shoot you, does that make it more likely or less likely that you will shoot first?  Any talk of NATO conducting a pre-emptive attack against Russia is extremely dangerous, because the Russians are paranoid enough already.  If they become convinced that we are planning to hit them before they can hit us, that could motivate them to do something really, really stupid.  We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been before, and we definitely do not need western leaders making provocative statements that are only going to make things even worse.

For example, during a conference in Brussels NATO's top military official said something that is now making headlines all over the globe.  The following comes from an article posted on MSN News entitled "NATO considers preemptive strikes amid rising tensions with Russia"…

NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer stated during a conference in Brussels that NATO leadership is contemplating the possibility of conducting precise preemptive strikes on Russian territory in the event of an armed conflict between Moscow and the Alliance.

It is now being claimed that Bauer was not actually talking about a pre-emptive strike on Russia.