Is War With Russia Possible?
The US is undermining opportunities for cooperation in Syria and Ukraine while escalating NATOs military presence near Russia.By Stephen F. Cohen
Today 10:38 am
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussionsafter a two-week sabbaticalabout the new USRussian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen laments that during the past two weeks the Obama administration appears to have been undermining cooperation with Moscow on three Cold War fronts.
Refusing to accept President Putins compelling argument that the Syrian army and its allies are the only boots on the ground fighting the Islamic State effectively, currently around the pivotal city of Aleppo, Washington and its compliant media are condemning the Syrian-Russian military campaign against moderate anti-Assad fighters in the area, many of them also jihadists. At risk are the Geneva peace negotiations brokered by Secretary of State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. Regarding the confrontation over Ukraine, where Kievs political and economic crisis grows ever worse, the best hope for ending that civil and proxy war, the Minsk Accords, was virtually sabotaged at the UN, where US Ambassador Samantha Power claimed the Accords require Russia returning Crimea to Ukraine. (In fact, Crimea is not mentioned in the Minsk agreement.) And in Europe, where opinion mounts favoring an end to the economic sanctions against Russiaas evidenced by the Dutch referendum against admitting Ukraine to the European Union and the French Parliaments vote in favor of ending the sanctionsthe Obama administration (not only Ambassador Power but President Obama himself) is lobbying hard against such a step when the issue comes up for a vote this summer.
Meanwhile, US-led NATO continues to increase its land, sea, and air military build-up on or near Russias borders. Not surprisingly, Cohen argues, Moscow responds by sending its planes to inspect a US warship sailing not far from Russias military-naval base at Kaliningrad. Preposterously, having for two decades steadily moved its military presence from Berlin to Russias borders, and now escalating it, Washington and Brussels accuse Moscow of provocations against NATO. Who, Cohen asks, is provoking (aggressing against) whom? Such NATO moves, he adds, can only stir in Russian minds memories of the German invasion in 1941, the last time such hostile military forces mobilized on the countrys frontier.
Finally, Cohen reports, an influential faction in Kremlin politics has long insisted, behind closed doors, that the US-led West is preparing an actual hot war against Russia, and that Putin has not prepared the country adequately at home or abroad. During the past two weeks, this struggle over policy has erupted in public with three prominent members of the Russian elite charging, sometimes implicitly but also explicitly, that Putin has supported his Fifth Column government headed by Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev. They are not seeking to remove Putin; there is no alternative to him and his public approval ratings, exceeding 80 percent, are too high. But they do want his government replaced and their own policies adopted. Those policies include a Soviet-style mobilization of the economy for war, and more proactive military policies abroad, especially in Ukraine. Cohen wonders whether US and NATO policymakers are sleepwalking toward war with Russia or whether they actively seek it.
http://www.thenation.com/article/is-war-with-russia-possible/
peace13
(11,076 posts)We have not had good luck with this kind of thing! For our next game of Jeopardy, I'll take $ss kicking for $500 please.
Baobab
(4,667 posts)Maybe a bit more.
Nitram
(22,945 posts)The US and its European allies have taken steps to prevent war by bolstering defenses. Failure to do that would be an invitation to Putin to invade Ukraine, and then start working on other bordering nations. Putin has to believe we really will defend our allies if they are invaded.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Nitram
(22,945 posts)ruble not doing so well right now.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)In NATO, the UK and France combined spend about as much on their military as Russia.
Putin is smart enough to know he can't launch a conventional offensive war against the West and win, and also smart enough to know no one wins if it goes nuclear.
While we and NATO have much larger military forces than Russia, trying to dismember them would be about as successful for us as it was for France in the 19th century and Germany in the 20th.
We should be working for a stable multipolar world with the BRICS as well as US and Europe rather than trying to create conflict to protect and expand banking and energy interests.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)no_hypocrisy
(46,270 posts)President Putin just made fun of President Trump's hair.