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Carson: 'Putin is a one-horse country'

The situation presented to Ben Carson during the foreign policy segment of Thursday's debate: Russian soldiers not in uniform invade Estonia in February 2017, weeks after President Carson takes the oath of office.

Carson replied that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be recognized as "an opportunist, and he’s a bully and we have to face him down," because "Putin is a one-horse country" when it comes to energy resources, namely oil.

"And I would first of all face him down in that whole region, the whole Baltic region. I think we need to put in some armored brigades there," the retired pediatric neurosurgeon said. "We only have one or two. We need much more than that," he continued. "We need to be doing military exercises in not only Estonia but Latvia and Lithuania. They’re terrified by the saber-rattling."

But Carson still was not finished with his explanation.

"I think we ought to put in our missile-defense system. I think we ought to give Ukraine offensive weapons, and I think we ought to fight them on an economic basis, because Putin is a one-horse country — oil and energy," he said, arguing that the United States would be compelled to intervene under Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. "And we ought to fight them on that level. We ought to be helping in terms of the technology for fracking, keeping the price low, quite frankly, because that’s what’s keeping him contained. So, uh, yes I absolutely would go in if he attacked. I think under Article V of NATO, we would definitely protect all of our allies.”

Ukraine is not a member of NATO.