should we be worried.

Russian Chief of Staff Yuri Baluyevski declared today that Russia "could and would use nuclear arms pre-emptively if under serious threat." Why should we even be concerned about this statement? Because it is the first time that the former Soviet Republic has ever stated that is would use such weaponry as a first move.

Even when the USSR was a superpower, and our chief enemy, their military doctrine stated that they would not use nukes against the west as a first strike option.

This is clearly a major change of their policy.

Now we can all assume that the Soviet Unions words could only be taken at face value. There was always a chance that they would have used their weapons if the need arose. Fortunately we never had to face that option.

So why all of a sudden do they take this new attitude.

One could assume that it is because they no longer have the military they once had. That they realize they are no longer have the means to assert their authority over others as they did during the cold war. (As we have seen in the recent past they have had a very hard time dealing with the small State of Chechnya)

Or maybe we can see yet another result of the failing policy of the Bush administration with their pre-emptive rhetoric.

Maybe the Russians have just been looking for a reason to announce this chance in their policy and the U.S. policy in dealing with Iraq was the prime opportunity for them to do it.

The Russians have never been our friends, Ally's maybe during the end of WWII, but never our friends, and it would be foolish to assume that they didn't have a pre-emptive policy in place.

However now we have to worry about whether or not the Russians will attempt to even try to settle a situation before such military force is applied.

Yet here is another concern. What if Americas policy pf pre-emption, and Russia's new policy of pre-emption cause such countries as China (for security reasons) to pre-empt an attack on Taiwan, or for that matter India or Pakistan pre-empting an attack on the one another.

We are at another cross roads in the human experience. We have the power to not only attack and destroy our enemies, but also everyone in the general area, and now in the name of "security" many nations will have the excuse to assault anyone they wish in a very devastating first strike.