"We Are Not Beginning a New Cold War, We are Well into It": Stephen Cohen on Russia-Ukraine Crisis
snip* AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Ukraine, Stephen Cohen is with us, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University; his most recent book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, out now in paperback. He recently wrote a piece for The Nation headlined "Cold War Again: Who is Responsible?"
Are we seeing the beginning of a new Cold War, Professor Cohen? And what exactly is happening right now in Ukraine?
STEPHEN COHEN: Those are big questions. We are not at the beginning of the Cold War, a new one; we are well into itwhich alerts us to the fact, just watching what you showed up there, that hot war is imaginable now, for the first time in my lifetime, my adult lifetime, since the Cuban missile crisis, hot war with Russia. Its unlikely, but its conceivable. And if its conceivable, something has to be done about it.
You did two things on your introduction which were very important. Almost alone among American media, you actually allowed Putin to speak for himself. Hes being filtered through the interpretation of the mass media here, allegedly, what he said, and its not representative. The second thing is, let us look just whats happening at this moment, or at least yesterday. The political head of NATO just announced a major escalation of NATO forces in Europe. He did a Churchillian riff: "We will increase our power in the air, in the sea, on the land." Meanwhile, as negotiations today begin in Geneva, were demanding that Russians de-escalate. And yet, we, NATO, are escalating as these negotiations begin.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/17/we_are_not_beginning_a_new