Russia and the West: Hurtling towards war?

[zoogs]

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war

 

I don't mean to wantonly throw up alarm bells, but ... what?

 

 

In the Cold War, [Russian analysty Fyodor Lukyanov] pointed out, both sides had understood this risk and installed political and physical infrastructure think of the "emergency red phone" to manage tensions and prevent them from spiraling out of control. That infrastructure is now gone.

 

"All those mechanisms were disrupted or eroded," he said. "That [infrastructure] has been degraded since the end of the Cold War because the common perception is that we dont need it anymore."

 

That the world does not see the risk of war hanging over it, in other words, makes that risk all the likelier.

To solve the problem of Russia's conventional military weakness, [Russian president Vladimir Putin] has dramatically lowered the threshold for when he would use nuclear weapons, hoping to terrify the West such that it will bend to avoid conflict....

 

Russia's aggression, born of both a desire to reengineer a European order that it views as hostile and a sense of existential weakness that justifies drastic measures, makes it far more willing to accept the dangers of war...

 

"Russia seems doomed to continue its decline an outcome that should be no cause for celebration in the West," [Harvard University School of Government dean Joseph Nye] wrote in a recent column. "States in decline think of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 tend to become less risk-averse and thus much more dangerous."

This is very long and a worthy read; much of it covers events that we've probably heard about over the past few years, and makes a case for perhaps paying a lot more attention to them.

[TGHusker]

But we set the "RESET BUTTON" -all should be well.

 

Since 9/11 our foreign policy under 2 diff 2 term presidents has gone to pot. There is greater risk now than about anytime since the 'end' of the cold war.

[zoogs]

It seems like Russia is really the problem here. They're locked into second tier status in world influence and, as a whole, are not able to accept that. They have former glories to aspire to and large, nuclear sticks to swing. I don't see how this ends well.

 

Even if Putin loses power, they've got a lovely structure of rigged elections and a Kremlin that murders political dissent, there or abroad. Is there any chance at all for moderates there?

[Creighton Duke]

Excellent article and thanks for posting, zoogs. Very chilling. I think that there could have been more extensive insight into Eastern psychology and mindsets to help put a lot of the points in perspective, but definitely a great piece that of REAL danger (that will of course get lost in the shuffle of social "issues").