The Nation

The US, Russia, China, and others are playing a dangerous game of military provocation. That’s exactly how World War I started a century ago.

By Michael T. Klare

Whether or not we have slid into a “new Cold War,” as claimed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the Munich Security Conference on February 13, we certainly have entered a period of escalating provocations, with China, Russia, the United States, and other major powers testing one another’s resolve through a series of military feints. While usually contained below the level of armed combat, these actions—deployment of bombers or warships in or near a rival’s territory, construction of new military bases in menacing locations, aggressive military maneuvers, and so on—naturally invite countermeasures of an increasingly belligerent sort and so increase the risk of war.

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Reinvent

Clinging to simplified narratives that mischaracterizes Russia as perpetually unreasonable has made productive US engagement with the country impossible.

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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:

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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.

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