17 Apr, 2022 10:41
Let's pray the ‘Cold War’ between America and Russia doesn't turn hot
The Cold War, a term coined 75 years ago, is still here – and it’s better than what seems to be the only alternative
Long article, how the US and world powers have betrayed Russia at every turn.
…The pivotal moment in modern US-Russia relations came following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. DespiteVladimir Putin being the first global leader to telephone US President George W. Bush and offer Russia’s unconditional support,
Washington returned the gesture in a way that Moscow would not soon forget. Just a few short months later December 13, 2001, Bush gave formal notice that the US would be withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Signed by Moscow and Washington in 1972, the ABM treaty maintained strategic parity – and more importantly, peace – between the nuclear powers, a type of balancing act that has been described as ‘mutually assured destruction’.
What did the US proceed to do shortly after walking away from the 30-year-old treaty? It went ahead with plans to bolt down a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in Poland, a mere stone's throw from the Russian border. To which they deployed soldiers this year.
“The U.S. Navy recently moved sailors aboard its newest base, a strategic installation in northern Poland that will support NATO’s European missile defense system,” Stars & Stripes reported in January. “Citing operational security, the Navy would not say how many personnel were assigned to the base or provide … details about the installation’s size or structure.”
Last year, Mikhail Khodarenok, a retired Russian colonel, discussed in an RT op-ed what this system means for Russia and European security.
“The development of the Aegis Ashore complex in Poland worries Russia,”Khodarenok wrote. “Here is the problem. The Mark 41 launching system can be quickly adjusted, and the SM-3 would be replaced with Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.”
“What is Russia supposed to do in this situation, when such a transformation of the land-based Aegis system in Poland could pose a very real threat to its national security,” he asked.
Nobody should think, however, that Moscow has not been busy finding ways to respond to the US and NATO efforts at building anti-ballistic systems in Eastern Europe. In fact, Moscow immediately got to work on ways to overcome the US anti-missile systems once Washington pulled out of the ABM Treaty. Those efforts paid off in ways that the US may not have anticipated.
In 2018, Putin delivered a rather unorthodox State of the Nation speech in which he announced the creation of hypersonic missiles that travel so fast that “missile defense systems are useless against them, absolutely pointless,” he said.
“No, nobody really wanted to talk to us about the core of the problem [US anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe], and nobody wanted to listen to us,” the Russian leader stated defiantly. “So listen now.”
Moscow’s concern over the strategic military architecture being constructed in its ‘near abroad’ is no secret. Back in 2007, Putin delivered a speech to the Munich Security Conference in which he emphasized that for Russia, NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” He went on to ask the rhetorical question: “against whom is this expansion intended?”
At this point, many more pages could be written on other areas of US-Russian relations that demonstrate the two nuclear superpowers may have survived the Soviet times, each in their own way, but the vestiges of the Cold War continue to live on. From unproven accusations that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election to Washington’s unconcealed displeasure over Russia’s decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war against Islamic State, tensions between the US and Russia are reverting back to Cold War levels, and then some.
And now, with hostilities in Ukraine threatening to spill over into something beyond control, it may be a good time to pray that it remains a Cold War and doesn't turn hot.
https://www.rt.com/russia/553950-cold-war-never-ends/-war-never-ends/