New Cold War 6-25-2015

25, June 2015                          New Cold War

A new cold war is rapidly emerging with our former, nemesis, Russia. We fired the first shot by encouraging NATO to expand eastwards towards the Russian border. Eagar to demonstrate their military might as a counterbalance to NATO’s aggressive wooing of Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea and then began an offensive against government forces in Eastern Ukraine. Leaders and nations behave in very predictable ways; if their national ego is bruised they often resort to military maneuvers to gain national pride and popularity. Russia, the US and NATO are no different.   As CEO’s of the planet, we issue red lines - Saddem Hussein, Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, . .  and like raging Rambo’s invariably plunge the regions into chaos (Iraq, Libya. .) .  We are now arming the Baltic States with battle tanks and other weapons to counterbalance Russian aggression. In what seems like an endless tit-for-tat, Russia is building a new generation of long-range ballistic missiles.  It is time we tried a diplomatic approach to defuse tensions lest we pour more trillions into bottomless sink holes much the same way as we have already done in the Middle East and Afghanistan.