Has Washington Declared a New Cold War? Talking with Stephen Cohen & John Mearsheimer

[KoKo]

Russia Containment Policy 2.0...Has Washington Declared a New Cold War? Talking with Stephen Cohen & John Mearsheimer...

Published on Apr 28, 2014
What does Washington's "containment" policy mean? What threats does it pose? Will it work against today's Russia? And does this mean Washington has declared a new Cold War? CrossTalking with Stephen Cohen and John Mearsheimer.

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

[OKNancy]

1. Washington? how about Moscow?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024891497

[swilton]

2. How about Moscow?

Ukraine is not only on Russia's back doorstep, Kiev is the capital of ancient Russ.

Do you think Washington would be acting differently if Russia was supporting separatist KKK members in Canada? The Neocon holdovers from the second Bush Administration with a little help from Biden and the DLC couldn't wait to start a second Cold War.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101692079

[zeemike]

3. Well how about them?

Do you think Russia will just sit back and let things happen?
Of course they will respond in kind...that is what the cold war is all about.

We put out our anti Putin propaganda and they put out theirs....who is wrong when no one is right?

[Perseus]

5. Great quote...

"who is wrong when no one is right?"

[zeemike]

6. Well it is kind of a rip off from Buffalo Springfield

For What It's Worth...

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

Oh and welcome to DU.

[markpkessinger]

8. Katrina Van Den Heuvel has an excellent piece in The Nation . . .

. . . in which she reminds readers that, among other things, there are legitimate grievances on both sides, and that Russia has seen a 20-year eastward expansion by NATO. At the very least, we should understand that this eastward expansion may leave Russia feeling the need to do a bit of push-back. (You can read her editorial here.)

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is jumping into bed with a hard right, unelected nationalist government in Kiev, and both major parties are avoiding serious debate about the wisdom of reviving a new Cold War.

[uhnope]

14. yes but Putin has justified the expansion of NATO.

& "jumping into bed with a hard right, unelected nationalist government in Kiev" could have been written in the Kremlin

[swilton]

4. Two of the US'

foremost social scientists with expertise in this crisis - Stephen Cohen - Russian/Soviet History and John Mearsheimer - International Politics. Every word of their analysis is significant.

From a former 'inside the beltway' civil servant who worked for the Federal Government as a Soviet/Russian analyst and who was also a Georgetown U/ U of Md. (Russian Area Studies/International Politics) scholar, I can testify to Cohen-Mearsheimer's esteem within the social science community. I can also attest to the validity of their observations as to how much Washington DC political leadership is out of touch...it is not just in the domain of foreign policy....Washington DC political leadership/the 'nomenklatura' as used by Cohen in other interview segments is out of touch with the failure of domestic economic policies and the affects those policies have on the shrinking middle class, let alone those below the poverty line.

In closing, I am going to quote the two-year-old statement of Veterans for Peace in calling for the abolishment of NATO.....

Veterans for Peace works for the abolition of war, and while that process will take many steps, one that should be taken immediately is the dissolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NATO has always been a war-making institution lacking in accountability to the peoples of the nations it claims to represent. But NATO at least once claimed a defensive purpose that it neither claims nor represents any longer.

NATO has militarized the nations of Europe against the will of their people, now maintains hundreds of nuclear weapons in non-nuclear European nations in blatant violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and is threatening Russia with missile base construction on its borders.

Having fought aggressive wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, NATO remains in Afghanistan, illegally, immorally, and to no coherent purpose. The people of the United States, other NATO nations, and Afghanistan itself, overwhelmingly favor an end to NATO's presence, while Presidents Obama and Karzai, against the will of their people, work to commit U.S. forces to at least 12.5 more years in Afghanistan.

NATO provides the United States with a pretense of global coalition and legality. Approximately half of the world's military spending is U.S., while adding the other NATO nations brings the total to three-quarters. The head of the Pentagon, Leon Panetta, recently testified in Congress that a war could be made legal by working through either the United Nations or NATO. While no written law supports that claim, it is a claim that has served its intended purpose. NATO also serves as a false legal shield, protecting the U.S. military from Congressional oversight.

The U.S. dominated NATO holds up the past year's war on Libya as a model for the future, with an eye on various potential victims, including Syria and Iran. In so doing, NATO serves as the armed enforcer of the exploitative agenda of the G-8, which has fled Chicago for the guarded compound at Camp David.

NATO's interests are neither democratically determined nor humanitarian in purpose. NATO does not bomb all nations guilty of humanitarian abuses. Nor does NATO's bombing alleviate human suffering, it adds to it. Saudi Arabia is not a target. Bahrain is not a target. Ben Ali and Mubarak were not targets. An analysis of NATO's real motivations reveals a desire to control the global flow of oil, to support dictators who have supported U.S./NATO wars, prisons and torture operations, to back Israel's expansionist agenda, and to surround and threaten the nation of Iran.

The killing and destruction engaged in by NATO in Libya was illegal, immoral, and counter-productive as is its aggression in Afghanistan. NATO’s wars have not brought democracy, peace, or human rights anywhere.

Libya is not a model for future NATO action. There is no model for future NATO action. NATO has lost its reason to exist if it ever had one. Veterans For Peace joins with our brothers and sisters in Europe, who are also rallying nonviolently against NATO, in calling for its elimination.

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2012/05/10/veterans-for-peace-calls-for-an-end-to-nato

[KoKo]

10. Thanks for sharing this on the thread...

appreciate your view and the link to "Anti-War" statement.

[swilton]

11. Thanks for the feedback

In previous discussions on this subject, there was so much 'noise' it was challenging to respond. In previous posts, RT has had excellent coverage of this event from a wealth of international scholars whom I would not dismiss.

As far as Stephen Cohen and John Mearsheimer - they are highly thought of in their respective communities and they are far from being considered as doves. Also, Mearsheimer points out in this interview, academia was hardly considered in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003...

[CtDemoFarmer]

7. One interesting fact about this issue

If you read the comment section of the NYT articles on our action in this area the most recommended are usually anti our actions, so many Americans are not fooled by Washington propaganda. The power of the internet.

[uhnope]

12. or the power of Kremlin-paid

commenters on the NTY articles

[snappyturtle]

9. Excellent. Now if only Washington would listen to this video.

Hegemony...bah humbug!