The blame for the new Cold War lies on the shoulders of the West, not Russia, reports EADaily.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a renowned publicist and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Governance, has detailed four cases of the collective West’s rejection of its promises to the Russian side.
“One-sided, selfish accusations against Russia invariably ignore the numerous Western provocations that took place long before Moscow began subversive measures,” the expert says.
The first provocation, which the Russian people will not forget for a long time, was the expansion of NATO further to the east, ignoring the agreed borders.
“In fact, the deterioration in Western relations with post-communist Russia began under the presidency of Bill Clinton,” Carpenter writes.
We are talking about the adoption of a decision in the administration of US President Bill Clinton on the entry of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary into the NATO bloc. Such a move violated the promise previously made by the George W. Bush government to the Russian side that the Alliance would not expand further than beyond the borders of East Germany.
The next dismissive Western decision was the 1995 NATO air war against Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The region, which is of strategic and religious interest for Moscow, has ended up in the hands of the militarized North Atlantic Alliance.
“Four years later, the Western powers staged an even more serious provocation by intervening on the side of separatist insurgents in the restive Serb province of Kosovo. The secession of this province from Serbia and transferring it under UN control not only set an unhealthy international precedent, but also demonstrated a complete disregard for Russia’s interests and preferences in the Balkans”, the report writes.
It was after the Clinton administration’s decision on the Balkans that a new round of the Cold War began to emerge. After 1999, the attitude of ordinary Russians towards Americans slipped from a positive mark of 80% to a similar one only with a negative perception of the United States in the eyes of Russian citizens.
The subsequent actions of the American establishment were already expected amid Washington’s arrogant desire to gain control of the entire globe as Russia recovered from the collapse of the USSR. The inclusion of the Baltics in 2004 decisively demonstrated to the Russian side the lack of trivial respect from the United States.
“These three small republics were not only part of the Soviet Union, but also spent a significant part of their history as part of Tsarist Russia. Russia was too weak at the time to respond with anything other than lingering diplomatic protests, but anger towards the West, with its arrogance and disregard for Moscow’s security interests, continued to mature”, Carpenter says.
The final stage in the formation of a real confrontation between Russia and the United States was Washington’s decision to declare the Russian side its enemy in Syria, Libya and Ukraine. All further interventions by the collective West in the affairs of sovereign countries were regarded by Russia as a threat to world stability and general security, which led to the beginning of an open confrontation.
“Although the US leadership may pretend not to remember this, it is clear that the Russian side has not forgotten anything and does not want to give up anything,” Carpenter sums up.
Presumably, Russia will remember past grievances and neglect in the upcoming talks with NATO on organizing mutual security. The “red lines” announced by the Kremlin will be reinforced by a reminder of the incompetence of the American establishment in terms of organizing security around the world.
Earlier News Front spoke about the demand of the American publicist to Washington to refuse to include Ukraine in NATO.