some of you need to wake up if you cannot see that this is the new cold war.
So what exactly are President Vladimir Putin and his generals trying to achieve? They aren't saying, but they appear to have multiple goals, all related:
To remind Europe as a whole (four strategic bombers circled the continent to reach Portugal) that Russia is a major nuclear power willing to use force;
To remind Finland and Sweden in particular (a group of seven Russian jets forced NATO planes to scramble over the Baltic Sea twice) of the weakness of their defenses, and warn those two countries against trying to join NATO or defend the Baltic States;
To show the U.S. that opposing Russian encroachments in Ukraine or any other post-Soviet state wouldn't be worth the risk;
To test NATO defenses and, as part of a major military upgrade, get real world training and flight hours after years of decline.
So yes, a version of the Cold War is returning, but its rules and parameters aren't clear.
A defining aspect of the Cold War was that, for the most part, deterrence kept each side from meddling in the other's sphere: The U.S. and NATO stood by during the uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Putin wants a similar kind of tacit agreement with the U.S. now.
He gave an idea of his approach to defending Russian interests in a question-and-answer session with foreign Russia analysts in Sochi last week:
True, the Soviet Union was referred to as ?"the Upper Volta with missiles." Maybe so, and there were loads of missiles. Besides, we had such brilliant politicians as Nikita Khrushchev, who hammered the desk with his shoe at the UN. And the whole world, primarily the United States and NATO thought: this Nikita is best left alone, he might just go and fire a missile, they have lots of them, we should better show some respect for them.
So Putin may see testing NATO as a form of shoe-banging. The danger of this new Cold War is that there is complete disagreement between Russia on one side and the U.S. and European Union on the other as to the dividing lines are and the rules of the game.
http://www.bloombergview.com/article...s-buzzing-nato