McClatchy: Russia's aggressive moves spark fears of a new Cold War

[babylonsister]

Russia's aggressive moves spark fears of a new Cold War
By Dave Montgomery | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — Lumbering Soviet-era bombers flying far outside Russian airspace. Harsh recriminations of U.S. expansionism. The most vigorous military modernization since the fall of communism more than 15 years ago.

With his country awash in oil-generated prosperity, President Vladimir Putin is flexing Russia’s muscles in a series of unsettling reminders of the Cold War that raise the question: Just what is the former KGB spy and — by extension, Russia — up to?

While U.S. officials and Russian experts generally don’t envision a new Cold War, many believe that Putin’s recent moves are designed to assert Russia’s new vitality, create further distance from the West and re-energize the Kremlin’s influence over the vast landscape that it controlled during the Soviet era.

Now approaching his eighth and final year as Russian president, Putin, 54, has seized on every opportunity to project a tough, virile image for himself and his once-chaotic nation, including a much-publicized, shirtless stroll through a Siberian stream that revealed his muscled physique.

The overall objective, said Eugene Rumer, a Russian expert at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C, is to "show the flag" and tell the world: "We’re big boys … we are a force in the international arena and we’ll position ourselves on our own terms."

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/19744.html

[L. Coyote]

1. D'oh! Imagine US forces in the Middle East invading Iraq back then. NUKES

would have been flying over the pole!