President Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attend a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 28. (Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin via Reuters)
Washington’s decision to beef up NATO in Eastern Europe will compel Moscow to reciprocate with an equally aggressive response.
In February, as the Syrian civil war raged on and the Islamic State entrenched itself in Libya, the White House announced plans to quadruple the defense budget’s 2017 allocation for — of all places — Europe, from $789 million to $3.4 billion. On March 30, the U.S. Defense Department fleshed out these plans. They include dispatching troops and materiel, like combat vehicles and heavy weaponry, to Romania, Hungary, and the Baltic states so that a NATO combat brigade will remain at the ready. The troops will be rotated in and out of the region, ostensibly avoiding any violation of the letter (if not the spirit) of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which sought to allay Russian fears stemming from the alliance’s expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries.
This was a delicate time for such an announcement: the 2015 Minsk accord, which could settle the separatist conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region, has turned into a deal that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cannot live up to. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government, hit hard by economic sanctions, had been indicating a desire to “reset” its relations with the West (if on its own, more equitable, terms) and had used its intervention in Syria to restore its battered status as a major power on the world stage.
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WNU Editor: Drifting into a war is not on the minds in both Washington and Moscow .... but relations have definitely taken a turn for the worst since the Ukraine crisis. And while I do not believe that we have approached the levels of the Cold War, trends are definitely indicating that we are moving in that direction. My guess is that Moscow will .... for the moment .... focus on its economy and adopt a wait and see approach towards the U.S. and NATO. This is after-all a U.S. Presidential election year, and there will be a new President in the White House come February with his/her own style and approach to U.S.-Russian relations .... an approach that may be more amicable to Russian interests (at least that is what Moscow is hoping for).
2 comments:
No but the media is.
I would say tensions are higher now than during the cold war because western politicians and military leaders no longer seems afraid of the atomic bomb and provoke Russia more and more the whole time.
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