... well. It looks like both sides are ready to fight “to the last Ukrainian.”
As I have long argued, Russia was never likely to yield. After being pushed to the wall by more than two decades of Western expansion – be it European Union or NATO enlargement – into a part of Europe that it considers vital to its national security, Russians believe that they have the moral high ground in defending their interests.
The danger now, with both sides trading accusations in an atmosphere of ...
... could get in the way of a Greater Europe being created. Russia, in spite of its internal turmoil in the 1990s, started pursuing an active policy of rapprochement with the rest of Europe. Documents were signed on cooperation with the European Union and NATO and Russia joined the Council of Europe. In the early 21st century, the outlines of a Greater Europe were emerging from Vladivostok to Lisbon.
2. At a certain point, it might have seemed that Greater Europe was only a few steps away. Agreement was ...
... calling for the United States to ramp up its military presence in these countries.
The Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) released one such
report
in August 2015: “U.S. Military Presence in Central and Eastern Europe: Consequences for NATO Strategic Adaptation, Deterrence and Allied Solidarity”.
The author of the paper, Artur Kacprzyk, calls for increasing the number of U.S. troops in Central and Eastern Europe, taking into account the fact that the United States has been a more ...
... has been a fundamental break-down of trust amid divergent and, at this point, totally incompatible accounts of what has happened in Ukraine and why. Long-standing concerns and differences over other issues, such as missile defence, the enlargement of NATO, regimes designed to build confidence on deployments of conventional military forces in Europe and non-strategic nuclear weapons have become more acute as a result. The economic relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe is also beginning ...
Poland sees Russia as a pre-eminent threat
Poland sees Russia as a pre-eminent threat. This has been the essence of speeches made by Andrzej Duda, the newly appointed President who has called for additional security guarantees from NATO and has plans to create an anti-Russian bloc within the organization alongside other Eastern European countries. Given Duda’s attitude, it would seem that Russian–Polish relations could deteriorate even further, while tensions in the ...
... Serbian-Hungarian border. To date, the subject of deploying U.S. military hardware has not been widely discussed in Europe despite the potential serious consequences of this initiative by the Pentagon, particularly with regard to relations between Russia and NATO.
The U.S. project officially became known a month prior in mid-June 2015, when The New York Times
published an article
reporting on the Pentagon’s plans to place combat tanks, infantry vehicles and other types of heavy weapons in Baltic and ...
... indication that diplomatic solutions are not being effectively sought, at least not without throwing into the mix a good deal of forcing of the opponent's hand.
The details of this decision reveal the degree of determination of the USA and the NATO. During a joint conference in Tallin with the defense ministers of the Baltic States a few days ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter declared “We'll temporarily deploy vehicles of an armored brigade and its equipment in the countries ...
... confrontation, re-energized national interest-based rivalries and re-emerging blocs, OSCE remains the only organization that is trusted – more or less – by all participating states. Merely because other security organizations, be it the US-led NATO or Russia-led CSTO, are deemed as representative of the political aspirations of a narrow group at best and serving national interests of the leading states at worst. In other words, regardless of criticisms,
trust
is the capital the organization ...
Prospects for Stationing U.S. Heavy Weapons in Central and Eastern Europe
The “war of words” that is heating up between Russia and individual NATO countries in connection with plans to deploy significant military force in Europe is becoming increasingly strained.
At first glance, such militant rhetoric could be explained by the escalation of the conflict in South-East Ukraine, where the fragile ...
The threat of nuclear war between Russia and the West, long relegated to Cold War history, reappeared last year as the crisis in East-West relations escalated.
Russian strategic bombers now fly long-range patrols near the coast of the US and its NATO allies, while Russian missile tests and military exercises involving simulated use of nuclear weapons raise the specter of nuclear war. The US responds as its defense analysts discuss options for boosting nuclear deterrence in Europe to counter Russian ...
