Thank you President Bush. You have officially restarted the cold war between the US and Russia.
You’ve managed to accomplish this in addition to putting the US in a horrible quagmire in Iraq, increasing the income gap between rich and poor with your tax-cuts-for-the-rich scheme, and saddling future generations of this country with a crippling deficit.
You must be proud President Bush.
OK, sorry for the hyperbole. While reading the news today (by news I mean BBC) I found this story prominently featured on BBC headlines.
Today Pres. Putin of Russia has suspended Russia's participation in the historic Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, which had effectively limited the amount of heavy conventional forces deployed by armed forces between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains (basically continental Europe) this most effects NATO and Russian troop deployments.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended involvement in one of the key post-Cold War arms control treaties. In a statement, the Kremlin said the choice was due to "extraordinary circumstances" affecting security.
Russia has repeatedly expressed concern over an increasing American presence in Eastern Europe. Russia’s withdrawal is further evidence of mistrust between the US and Russia and the decay of East-West relations.
The BBC's Europe editor, Mike Saunders, says that the US announcement of its plans for a missile defence shield within Europe was the last straw for Russia.
I’m not defending Russia in any way; obviously they have their skeletons too. Putin has effectively rolled back press reforms and now there are reports of a new "Putin Youth Guard, and the amount of independent newspapers shut down, and independent reporters killed is simply abhorable.
Russia indicates that suspending their participation in the CFE is a necessary thing.
The Kremlin maintains that the 1990 treaty is outdated and restricts its ability to move troops around its own territory.
I doubt Russia would feel pressured to redeploy their troops if the US weren’t deploying missile defense in Eastern Europe and maintaining a constant troop presence in Southern Asia.
The US has been pressuring Russia to remove troops from the regions of Abkhazia in Georgia and Trans-Dniester in Moldova as well as to recognize the rights of Chechnya to some sort of self governance, or at least not have to live under the brutality of the current police state that exists there. How can we expect Russia to feel comfortable with an increasing US presence in Eastern Europe and Southern Asia? Russia’s international posturing towards the US is consistently done in reaction to an increasing US militarization of Eastern Europe. They just don’t trust us, and we continue to give them reasons not to.
I grew up during the later half of the cold war. Nuclear War and WW3 really scared the sh*t out of me. When the wall came down, Bush senior dealt with things fine, no bloodshed during the collapse, and no charges of US intervention.
Then President Clinton came along, and all of the sudden World Peace was a real thing.
What the hell happened?
(9/11 is not the answer to that question, either.)
Another thing that really upsets me is that this would be front page news in another era. But because of all the other stuff that Bush has done, mainstream media’s buying off on every smokescreen that comes out of the Whitehouse, and because of America's obsession with fluff stories, a story like this doesn't get even a bat of attention.
Cheers.