Believe it or not, this is not going to be a piece about whether or not Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to influence the U.S. presidential election in his favor. I will await the results of the independent inquiry before passing judgment on this issue. While the media and the U.S. public are so caught up in the question of to what extent the Russian government attempted to influence the U.S. election, far more dangerous developments are taking place between the U.S. and Russia which threaten to bring us back to the worst days of the Cold War. I'm referring to the mutual troop buildup between NATO forces in Eastern Europe and the Russians along their western border.
In order to understand these developments, we have to go back to the end of the Cold War. All during the Cold War, U.S. propaganda portrayed the Soviet Union as an expansionist power bent on spreading its godless ideology throughout the globe. The Russians, by contrast, interpret history very differently. From the Russian perspective, their country has been the victim of repeated invasions from Western powers, which were repelled only at great material and human cost.
Thus, when NATO began expanding eastward into what was at one time Russia's sphere of influence, many in the Russian government, including Vladimir Putin, were alarmed and not without reason. During Bill Clinton's administration, NATO expanded to states directly adjacent to the Russian border. While we in the West may see this benignly, it's only because we haven't been the victims of such a policy ourselves. Recall how we almost brought the world to nuclear annihilation when the Russians, countering the threat of U.S. nuclear missiles based in Turkey, placed their own missiles in Cuba "90 miles off the coast of Florida" as our panicked press repeated endlessly. Imagine how we might react if the Russians formed an alliance that included Mexico and Canada and one might begin to understand Russian attitudes about NATO.
Upon coming to power, Vladimir Putin has consistently sought to restore Russian strength and pride of place in the international system. Angry at the West for taking advantage of post-Cold War Russian weakness to enlarge what it sees as an anti-Russian alliance (with good reason, since that was NATO's Cold War raison d'être), Putin has begun resisting and challenging American hegemony within it's sphere of influence. The problem is his actions have resulted in what International Relations scholars identify as the Security Dilemma. In seeking to improve Russia's security, the actions taken by Putin have been viewed as provocative and threatening by the U.S. and its NATO allies. There have been several incidents of Russian jets "buzzing" U.S. ships in the Black Sea (though none of these reports ever bothers to ask the question what a U.S. ship is doing operating that close to the Russian heartland. It's simply taken for granted that the U.S. has the right to conduct military exercises anywhere in the world it deems fit). Further, Russia's annexation of the Crimea led to a NATO troop buildup in Eastern Europe, which was met by a similar buildup of Russian forces along its western border. Most alarming was Russia's placement of nuclear capable Iskander-M missiles in Kaliningrad, which are capable of striking Berlin.
The problem for anyone concerned with these alarming developments from an American perspective is that allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. Presidential election makes it extremely difficult to begin any kind of process of re-setting relations between the two powers. Democrats, seeking to gain political advantage, can easily attack Trump from the right by portraying him as "soft" on Russia
(and that is a most generous interpretation of the kind of political attacks Trump would face). Once again, our dysfunctional political system makes it almost impossible to cooperate to achieve desirable policy objectives. In the meantime, the two greatest nuclear powers continue to escalate tensions, threatening the very future of the human race.
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