HERE'S YOUR PITH HELMET, GENERAL. General Ralph "The World is a Stereotype" Peters talks today in the New York Post about the mysterious heathen Tartar Caucasian known to you civilians as the Russian Bear:

THE Russian soldier's greatest virtue has always been stubbornness. Time and again, Russia's military was defeated, fair and square -- by Charles XII's Swedes, Napoleon's polyglot legions and Hitler's armored barbarians. But the Russians wouldn't surrender...

Today, the Russians are being stubborn again, frustrating Europe's expectations and our own fond wishes. The new czar in the Kremlin is determined to have his country forge its own way. Our well-intentioned concerns don't move him a millimeter as he redesigns the one-party state for the 21st century.

Adding to our frustration, the people of Russia support him overwhelmingly.

They're being stubborn again.

Vladimir Putin's Russia presents those of us who revere democracy with a series of dilemmas. It's the worrisome member of the family of "Western" nations, charming one day, crazy the next -- and prone to nasty behavior... What do we make of a country that drinks itself to death, yet idolizes a national leader who refuses to raise a shot-glass to his lips?

And so on, in the manner of Commander McBragg talking about his battles with the fuzzie-wuzzies. These Caucasus Tartar Mongol hordes are shown as savages that easily submit to the yoke of Putinism, yet one is invited to admire, after a fashion, their bovine stubbornness.

The General has an easy answer for everything, and everywhere. Of course, the prescription varies from region to region. While in the Middle East, he advises that we show the damn wogs a bit of cold steel in the belly -- "Exemplary punishment may be out of fashion, but it's one of the most enduringly effective tools of statecraft. Where you cannot be loved, be feared" -- toward the Eurasian Cossack Tartar he advises a less forthright approach, though the regime is unspeakably corrupt and noxious to "those of us who revere democracy," and "Russia has done far more than its share to make terrorism worse."

"So how do we justify cooperating with Russia... Morally, we can't justify it. Yet, we cooperate. Because we must. In the real world, that's just how things work sometimes. You go with the less-bad alternative and grit your teeth."

Besides, says Peters, now looking a little less like the Scourge of the Satraps than previously, "An angel won't replace Putin in the Kremlin. But Putin isn't entirely a devil. The glass is dirty, but it's nearly three-quarters full."

Why does Peters take such a -- dare we say, moderate POV on the Russkies, but not on the Arabs? Could it be that the Russians would not be so easy to bomb into submission, or its eleven-time-zone mass so easy to occupy?

Or could some of it be that the General just has warmer feelings toward one set of stereotypes than for another?