The New Cold War

Presidents Putin and Obama. Carnegie Moscow Center

America's New Cold War With Russia -- Stephen F. Cohen, The Moscow Times

With the full support of a feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment, Washington is slipping, if not plunging, into a new cold war with Moscow. Relations, already deeply chilled by fundamental disputes over missile defense, the Middle East and Russia's internal politics, have now been further poisoned by two conflicts reminiscent of tit-for-tat policy-making during the previous Cold War.

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My Comment: I concur with this assessment. I have to go back to the Cold War of the 1980s as my baseline to appreciate how bad our relations are today. Whose fault is it .... both are at fault made worse by both sides pursuing different agendas and goals on the world stage. But unlike the 1980s where my money was on the the U.S. to persevere .... I am not so sure right now. The U.S. of today reminds me of the old Soviet Union of the early 1980s .... fiscally broke but pursuing economic policies that those of us who grew up in the old eastern block at the time knew were not sustainable or workable. Throw in a foreign policy that is creating more chaos than order (i.e. taking just one of many examples .... I have never seen the countries that surround the Mediterranean in the mess that they are in today .... economic collapse and massive unemployment in the north, revolution in the south, and war in the east) .... we are now ending up (justifiable or not) with a global perception that the U.S. is in decline in regions that they once were dominant in.

Fortunately .... the West is a vibrant community, and even though those who warn of hard times ahead are not listened to .... I know that with time they will be proven right and their reward will be to fix up the mess .... and fix it up they will. And as for the deep freeze in relations between the U.S. and Russia .... it can (and will) only get better.