Clinging to simplified narratives that mischaracterizes Russia as perpetually unreasonable has made productive US engagement with the country impossible.
Dmitry Medvedev’s Interview With Time Magazine
Ed: This interview transcript was obtained from the Russian Government News website. As of the date of this CCI post’s creation (Feb 17, 2016), Time Magazine appears to have published excerpts from the interview, and an interpretive summary of the interview, but not the full interview transcript.
Dmitry Medvedev has given an interview to Time magazine correspondent Simon Shuster following the Munich Security Conference.
Transcript:
Question: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview with Time magazine. I would also like to thank you for your remarks today at the conference. This was a very interesting and eloquent speech. You made a very interesting statement regarding the Cold War that didn’t go unnoticed and became a hotly debated subject here in Munich. However, I would like to start with a different question that has been dominating the news lately and is a topical issue. I’m talking about Syria. Yesterday, President Assad said in an interview that his final objective was to return the whole Syrian territory to his control. My question is whether Russia is ready to support him in achieving this objective, including by military means?
Why Is America Restarting the Cold War With Russia?
Dana Rohrabacher
The National Interest
Washington’s strategy toward Moscow is outmoded and misdirected.
The president’s new budget proposal for 2017 calls for a 200 percent increase for our military spending in Europe aimed at Russia—perhaps the most provocative step yet in our apparent efforts to encircle and antagonize that country.
Meanwhile, spending aimed at ISIS is to increase by 50 percent.
The Obama Administration Recklessly Escalates Confrontation With Russia
By quadrupling military spending on NATO’s forces on Russia’s border, Washington risks turning the new Cold War into a hot one.
By Stephen F. Cohen
he Obama administration has just recklessly escalated its military confrontation with Russia. The Pentagon’s announcement that it will more than quadruple military spending on the US-NATO forces in countries on or near Russia’s borders pushes the new Cold War toward actual war—possibly even a nuclear one.
The move is unprecedented in modern times. With the exception of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Western military power has never been positioned so close to Russia. The Obama administration’s decision is Russian roulette Washington-style, making the new Cold War even more dangerous than the preceding one. Russia will certainly react, probably by moving more of its own heavy weapons, including advanced missiles, to its Western borders, possibly along with a number of tactical nuclear weapons. [Continue Reading]
The Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe Is Greater Today Than During the Cold War
William J. Perry
U.S. Secretary of Defense (1994-1997); author “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink”
During the Cold War we maintained a powerful force of nuclear weapons with more than 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads deployed in a so-called triad: intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and bombers armed with nuclear bombs and air-launched cruise missiles. Even with conservative estimates of expected attrition to this force, it was powerful enough to destroy the Soviet Union many times over. So it was considered to be an assured deterrent to a nuclear attack on the U.S.