Lithuania's president Adamkus on World War III

In the second big quality newspaper in Germany, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Lithuanian president Adamkus presents his perspective on the recent developments, of which I have just translated a short extract:

Sueddeutsche asks, why Moscow risks to provoque the international community for two little provinces:

Adamkus:If you have long-term plans, you have to start somewhere.

sueddeutsche.de:What kind of plans?

Adamkus:In my imagination Crimea will be first, and then the Baltic countries as part of the former sphere of interest will follow, and then the Southern Caucausus.

sueddeutsche.de:With your horror imagination you are describing a scenario that would start the Third World War. How realistic is this?

Adamkus:The tendencies are going into this directions, but I hope that the world will oppose and prevent its self-annihilation. If crazy people in Russia were planning an intervention into our country, they could overrun us within minutes. But everyone imagening this horror scenario would back off, and maybe this will keep us alive.

That's pretty tough words, and had I not live in the Baltics, I would have problems to follow.

However, although I understand the strength of Adamkus' words, they are part of an unnecessarily extreme rhethoric on both sides of the conflict, not helpful, and divisive. Old men's rhethoric, altoghether.

This is not how we will prevent a "World War III"...