{"id":241213,"date":"2016-05-02T16:28:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T16:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/natos-dangerous-game-bear-baiting-russia\/"},"modified":"2016-05-02T16:28:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T16:28:45","slug":"natos-dangerous-game-bear-baiting-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/natos-dangerous-game-bear-baiting-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO\u2019s Dangerous Game: Bear-Baiting Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"253.69190973151\">\n<div id=\"attachment_31433\" style=\"width: 732px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" readability=\"34\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31433\" src=\"http:\/\/fpif.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Hypersonic-Glide-Vehicle-Public-Domain.jpg\" alt=\"Since March 2105 there have been over 60 incidents that could have triggered a major crisis between Russia and the United States. Pictured: artist\u2019s rendering of hypersonic glide vehicle. (Photo: Wikipedia \/ Public Domain)\" width=\"722\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"http:\/\/fpif.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Hypersonic-Glide-Vehicle-Public-Domain-300x243.jpg 300w, http:\/\/fpif.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Hypersonic-Glide-Vehicle-Public-Domain-250x203.jpg 250w, http:\/\/fpif.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Hypersonic-Glide-Vehicle-Public-Domain.jpg 387w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 722px) 100vw, 722px\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Since March 2105 there have been over 60 incidents that could have triggered a major crisis between Russia and the United States. Pictured: artist\u2019s rendering of hypersonic glide vehicle. (Photo: Wikipedia \/ Public Domain)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacewar.com\/reports\/US_to_station_armored_brigade_in_eastern_Europe_from_2017_Pentagon_999.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aggressive<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/24\/world\/europe\/obama-calls-meeting-with-european-leaders-over-shared-challenges.html?_r=0\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">revanchist<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/15\/world\/europe\/vladimir-putin-russia.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">swaggering<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are routinely inserting before the words \u201cRussia,\u201d or \u201cVladimir Putin.\u201d It is a vocabulary most Americans have not seen or heard since the height of the Cold War.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The question is, why?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is Russia really a military threat to the United States and its neighbors? Is it seriously trying to \u201crevenge\u201d itself for the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union? Is it actively trying to rebuild the old Soviet empire? The answers to these questions are critical, because, for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, several nuclear-armed powers are on the edge of a military conflict with fewer safeguards than existed 50 years ago.<\/span><span id=\"more-31432\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider the following events:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NATO member Turkey shoots down a Russian warplane.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russian fighter-bombers come within 30 feet of a U.S. guided missile<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacedaily.com\/reports\/Russia_denies_reckless_behaviour_in_US_warship_flyby_999.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">destroyer<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and a Russian fighter does a<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacewar.com\/reports\/Pentagon_describes_Russian_jets_barrel_roll_over_US_spy_plane_999.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">barrel roll<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over a U.S. surveillance plane. Several U.S. Senators call for a military response to such encounters in the future.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/11\/world\/europe\/nato-to-expand-military-presence-in-europe-to-deter-russians.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NATO<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the U.S. begin deploying three combat brigades\u2014about 14,000 troops and their equipment\u2014in several countries that border Russia, and Washington has more than quadrupled its military spending in the region.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. State Department officials accuse Russia of<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/943a8ae0-f62e-11e5-803c-d27c7117d132.html#axzz474A9xWNF\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cdismantling\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> arms control agreements, while Moscow charges that Washington is pursuing several destabilizing weapons programs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both NATO and the Russians have carried out large war games on one another\u2019s borders and plan more in the future, in spite of the fact that the highly respected European Leadership Network (ELN) warns that the maneuvers are creating<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2015\/10\/20\/cold-war-redux-nato-flexes-muscle-largest-war-games-decade\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cmistrust.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the scary aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the major nuclear powers established some ground rules to avoid the possibility of nuclear war, including the so-called \u201chot line\u201d between Washington and Moscow. But, as the threat of a nuclear holocaust faded, many of those safeguards have been allowed to lapse, creating what the ELN calls a \u201cdangerous situation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to a recent<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org\/managing-dangerous-incidents-the-need-for-a-nato-russia-memorandum-of-understanding_3578.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by the ELN, since March of last year there have been over 60 incidents that had \u201cthe potential to trigger a major crisis between a nuclear armed state and a nuclear armed alliance.\u201d The report warns that, \u201cThere is today no agreement between NATO and Russia on how to manage close military encounters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such agreements do exist, but they are bilateral and don\u2019t include most alliance members. Out of 28 NATO members, 11 have memorandums on how to avoid military escalation at sea, but only the U.S., Canada and Greece have what is called \u201cPreventing Dangerous Military Activities\u201d (DMA) agreements that cover land and air as well. In any case, there are no such agreements with the NATO alliance as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lack of such agreements was starkly demonstrated in the encounter between Russian aircraft and the U.S. The incident took place less than 70 miles off Baltiysk, home of Russia\u2019s Baltic Sea Fleet, and led to an<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacewar.com\/reports\/Pentagon_expresses_displeasure_of_Russian_fighter_incidents_999.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">alarming exchange<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the Senate Armed Services Committee among Republican John McCain, Democrat Joe Donnelly, and U.S. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, soon to assume command of U.S. forces in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">McCain: \u201dThis may sound a little tough, but should we make an announcement to the Russians that if they place the men and women on board Navy ships in danger, that we will take appropriate action?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scaparrotti: \u201cThat should be known, yes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Donnelly: \u201cIs there a point\u2026where we tell them in advance enough, the next time it doesn\u2019t end well for you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scaparrotti: \u201cWe should engage them and make clear what is acceptable. Once we make that known we have to enforce it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the Americans, the Russian flyby was \u201caggressive.\u201d For the Russians, U.S. military forces getting within spitting range of their Baltic Fleet is the very definition of \u201caggressive.\u201d What if someone on the destroyer panicked and shot down the plane? Would the Russians have responded with an anti-ship missile? Would the U.S. have retaliated and invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, bringing the other 27 members into the fray? Faced by the combined power of NATO, would the Russians\u2014feeling their survival at stake\u2014consider using a short-range nuclear weapon? Would the U.S. then attempt to take out Moscow\u2019s nuclear missiles with its new hypersonic glide vehicle? Would that, in turn, kick in the chilling logic of thermonuclear war: Use your nukes or lose them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Far-fetched? Unfortunately, not at all. The world came within minutes of a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis and, as researcher Eric Schlosser demonstrated in his book \u201cCommand and Control,\u201d the U.S. came distressingly close at least twice more by accident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the problems about nuclear war is that it is almost impossible to envision. The destructive powers of today\u2019s weapons have nothing in common with the tiny bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so experience is not much of a guide. Suffice it to say that just a small portion of world\u2019s nukes would end civilization as we know it, and a general exchange could possibly extinguish human life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With such an outcome at least in the realm of possibility, it becomes essential to step back and try to see the world through another\u2019s eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is Russia really a danger to the U.S. and its neighbors? NATO points to Russia\u2019s 2008 war with Georgia and its 2014 intervention in eastern Ukraine as examples of \u201cRussian aggression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But from Moscow, the view is very different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl pledged to then Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move eastward, nor recruit former members of the East bloc military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. By 1995 NATO had enlisted Pact members Romania, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and signed on Montenegro this year.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacewar.com\/reports\/Britain_says_Georgia_key_security_ally_bashes_Russia_999.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Georgia<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is currently being considered, and there is a push to bring Ukraine aboard. From Moscow\u2019s perspective NATO is not only moving east, but encircling Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI don\u2019t think many people understand the visceral way Russia views NATO and the European Union as an existential threat,\u201d says U.S.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/inmilitary.com\/russia-adds-undersea-fleet-fueling-u-s-rivalry-moscow-dispatches-patrol-submarines-signs-new-cold-war\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Admiral Mark Ferguson<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most NATO members have no interest in starting a fight with Russia, but others sound like they think it wouldn\u2019t be a bad idea. On April 15,<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacewar.com\/reports\/Russia_more_dangerous_than_IS_says_Poland_foreign_minister_999.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Witold Waszczykowski<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the foreign minister of Poland\u2019s right-wing government, told reporters that Russia is \u201cmore dangerous than the Islamic State,\u201d because Moscow is an \u201cexistential threat to Europe.\u201d The minister made his comments at a NATO conference discussing the deployment of a U.S. armored brigade on Poland\u2019s eastern border.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is Russia reneging on arms control agreements? The charge springs from the fact that Moscow has refused to consider cutting more of its nuclear weapons, is boycotting nuclear talks, deploying intermediate range nuclear missiles, and backing off a conventional weapons agreement. But again, Moscow sees all that very differently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From Moscow\u2019s point of view, the U.S. is continuing to spread its network of<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/moscow-warns-us-over-missile-system-deployment-to-s-korea-.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=94988&amp;NewsCatID=356\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anti-missile systems<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in Europe and Asia, which the Russians see as a threat to their nuclear force (as does China). And as far as \u201creneging\u201d goes, it was the U.S. that dumped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, not Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The U.S. is also pouring billions of dollars into<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/17\/science\/atom-bomb-nuclear-weapons-hgv-arms-race-russia-china.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cmodernizing\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> its nuclear weapons. It also proposes using ICBMs to carry conventional warheads (if you see one coming, how do you know it\u2019s not a nuke?), and is planning to deploy high velocity<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/sputniknews.com\/military\/20160206\/1034340105\/prompt-global-strike.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">glide vehicles<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that will allow the U.S. to strike targets worldwide with devastating accuracy. And since NATO is beefing up its forces and marching east, why should the Russians tie themselves to a conventional weapons treaty?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What about Russia\u2019s seizure of the Crimea? According to the<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/washington-will-retain-sanctions-until-russia-returns-crimea-john-kerry-says-we-will-not-accept-redrawing-borders\/5514658\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. State Department,<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> redrawing European boundaries is not acceptable in the 21<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century\u2014unless you are Kosovo breaking away from Serbia under an umbrella of NATO air power, in which case it\u2019s fine. Residents of both regions voted overwhelmingly to secede.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Georgia? The Georgians stupidly started it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But if Russia is not a threat, then why the campaign of vilification, the damaging economic sanctions, and the provocative military actions?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, it is the silly season\u2014American elections\u2014and bear baiting is an easy way to look \u201ctough.\u201d It is also a tried and true tactic of the U.S. armaments industry to keep their production lines humming and their bottom lines rising. The Islamic State is scary but you don\u2019t need big-ticket weapons systems to fight it. The $1.5 trillion F-35s are for the Russkies, not terrorists. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are also those who still dream of regime change in Russia. Certainly that was in the minds of the neo-cons when they used The National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House to engineer\u2014at the cost of $5 billion\u2014the coup that toppled Ukraine into NATO\u2019s camp. The New American Century gang and their think tanks\u2014who brought you Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria\u2014would to leverage Russia out of Central Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most frightening aspect of current East-West tension is that there is virtually no discussion of the subject, and when there is it consists largely of distorted history and gratuitous insults. Vladimir Putin might not be a nice guy, but the evidence he is trying to re-establish some Russian empire, and is a threat to his neighbors or the U.S., is thin to non-existent. His 2014 speech at the Valdai International Discussion Club is more common sense than bombast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Expansionist? Russia has two bases in the Middle East and a handful in Central Asia. The U.S. has<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/fpif.org\/ashton-carters-plan-expand-u-s-military-presence-across-globe-even\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">662 bases<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> around the world and Special Forces (SOF)<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/world\/do-you-know-how-many-countries-us-militarys-deployed\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">deployed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in between 70 and 90 countries at any moment. Last year SOFs were active in 147 countries. The U.S. is actively engaged in five wars and is considering a sixth in Libya. Russian military spending will fall next year, and the U.S. will<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2016\/02\/11\/6-reasons-not-reboot-cold-war\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">out-spend<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Moscow by a factor of 10. Who in this comparison looks threatening?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a number of areas where cooperation with Russia could pay dividends. Without Moscow there would be no nuclear agreement with Iran, and the Russians can play a valuable role in resolving the Syrian civil war. That, in turn, would have a dramatic effect on the numbers of migrants trying to crowd into Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead, an<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacewar.com\/reports\/NATO-Russia_talks_end_in_profound_disagreements_999.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">April 20 meeting<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> between NATO ministers and Russia ended in \u201cprofound disagreements\u201d according to alliance head Jens Stoltenberg. Russian ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko said that the continued deployment of armed forces on its borders makes it impossible to have a \u201cmeaningful dialogue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are baiting the bear, not a sport that ever ends well.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>This piece was reprinted from <a href=\"http:\/\/fpif.org\/natos-dangerous-game-bear-baiting-russia\/\">Foreign Policy In Focus<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since March 2105 there have been over 60 incidents that could have triggered a major crisis between Russia and the United States. Pictured: artist\u2019s rendering of hypersonic glide vehicle. (Photo: Wikipedia \/ Public Domain) \u201cAggressive,\u201d \u201crevanchist,\u201d \u201cswaggering\u201d: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-241213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}