Dear CCI Friends,
What a strange thing that America’s two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, don’t want to see decent relations between the world’s two great nuclear powers??? Can you believe this?
The article below is written by a third U.S. Party member, a Libertarian. Please scan and ponder … What rational mind could go along with both U.S. parties intentions to create bad relations between two nuclearized giants!
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Pandemic Brings US and Russia Closer Together and Washington Hawks Panic
April 21, 2020
Doug Bandow
President Donald Trump entered office saying that he wanted a better relationship with Russia. Instead, the two governments edged closer to conflict.
The administration increased sanctions on Moscow, expelled Russian diplomats, expanded military assistance to Ukraine, and inserted more troops and money into NATO for Europe’s defense. U.S. and Russian forces directly confronted each other in Syria.
The Putin government openly challenged Washington in Venezuela, ignoring the venerable Monroe Doctrine, and helped trigger an oil price war intended to bankrupt America’s shale oil industry. The administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, threatening to trigger a new nuclear arms race. In a reversal of Richard Nixon’s famous opening to Beijing, Russia and China forged a cooperative relationship based almost entirely on hostility from and to America.
These ominous developments raised tensions between the world’s two most important nuclear powers. The result wasn’t quite a new Cold War, since Putin is no ideologue, communist or other. However, Moscow demonstrated that even a weakened regional power could put significant obstacles in the way of an arrogant hyperpower that had overextended itself.
Then along came COVID-19.