No longer world's ‘policeman,' US must coexist with China, Russia
Like Gulliver and the Lilliputians, America cannot control the entire world. Since 1999, the world has been in an imbalance as the United States has sought to assert its hegemony in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, to great consternation of the local affected peoples. America has grown much poorer in the process, with costly warmongering abroad at a time when domestic problems and division have dramatically grown.
America should not fight the emergence of Russia and China. Instead of squandering much blood and treasure in preventing this, the United States should reset relations with these emerging superpowers and create a model of shared governance and coexistence that will spare humanity from World War III.
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Michael Pravica
Henderson, Nev.
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New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Russia backs off Medvedev rhetoric after Trump says he ordered nuke subs closer to Moscow: ‘There can be no winner in a nuclear war'
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Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Boston Globe
Trump tells Russian official to ‘watch his words,' but he bites back instead
It was the second time this summer that Trump and Medvedev, Russia's head of state from 2008 to 2012, traded blows on social media. The exchanges have been striking not only for the verbal brinkmanship on display between the world's nuclear superpowers, but also for the mismatched stature of the figures involved. While Trump commands the world's most powerful military, Medvedev is widely seen as a social-media attack dog relegated to the periphery of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The viciousness of the overnight exchange highlighted the volatility and opacity of a geopolitical relationship in which Trump and Putin set policy largely on their own. And it put on display the combustible mix that can occur when the Kremlin's long-standing willingness to use nuclear threats meets Trump's penchant for late-night diatribes on the internet. Hanging in the balance is the future of Ukraine, three years into Russia's full-scale invasion. Advertisement 'In wars, traditionally diplomatic messaging is something that's done with a lot of care and discipline,' said Michael Kimmage, a professor at Catholic University in Washington who specializes in the US-Russia relationship. 'The consequences of screwing up can be so huge.' Advertisement Nuclear saber-rattling by Medvedev and by Putin himself was a common feature earlier in Russia's invasion, as the Kremlin sought to deter the Biden administration from supporting Ukraine. Putin tamped down that rhetoric after Trump took office, hoping to take advantage of his Russia-friendly stance. But as Trump grew frustrated with Putin's unwillingness to budge on Ukraine, the language from Moscow has begun to shift again. Putin himself has said nothing about Trump's recent threats of new sanctions, and the Russian president's spokesperson has said little but acknowledged that the Kremlin is paying attention. Others, like Medvedev, have taken a harder line. 'Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,' Medvedev posted on the social platform X on Monday, in English, after Trump warned that he could impose new sanctions in as little as 10 days. Evoking the US presidential campaign, in which Trump criticized President Joe Biden as risking World War III, Medvedev added: 'Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!' The use of Trump's derogatory moniker for his predecessor reflects what some analysts believe to be the Kremlin's bet that Trump's core supporters will prevail on him to avoid escalating America's conflict with Russia. Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, said there was something symbiotic about Trump and Medvedev fighting on social media. Medvedev, who had styled himself as a pro-Western liberal when he served as president more than a decade ago, has recast himself as an uncompromising soldier in Russia's showdown with the West. But attacking Medvedev may also be useful to Trump, Golosov posited, by allowing him to show he's getting tough on Russia without attacking Putin directly. In June, Trump attacked Medvedev for saying countries could send nuclear warheads to Iran, adding: 'I guess that's why Putin's 'THE BOSS.'' Advertisement 'Trump wants to criticize someone in Russia,' Golosov said, but is still hoping to make a deal with Putin over Ukraine. Medvedev, he added, 'is the perfect target.' Medvedev is active on social media in a way that Putin and most other senior Russian officials are not. Medvedev set up a Twitter account in 2010 on a visit to Silicon Valley, when he was president and positioning himself as a tech-forward, reformist leader. Long a loyal ally of Putin, Medvedev ceded the presidency back to him in 2012. Putin removed Medvedev from the prime minister post in a government reshuffle in 2020 and gave him the largely symbolic role of vice chair of the Russian Security Council. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev accelerated his reinvention as a far-right hawk, often threatening nuclear apocalypse more explicitly than did Putin and his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov. Analysts of Russian politics say that Medvedev's reinvention came in part out of necessity because his past reputation as a liberal made him vulnerable amid the wartime power struggles within the ruling elite. But his social-media hostility is almost certainly blessed by the Kremlin, analysts say, because it amplifies the threat of Russia's nuclear arsenal and helped Putin style himself as a relative moderate. This article originally appeared in
Forbes
6 days ago
- Forbes
NATO's Arming For World War III Aimed At Preventing Clash With Russia
While threatening to launch nuclear missiles against any Ally helping democratic Ukraine repel its Russian invaders, Kremlin commander-in-chief Vladimir Putin has also warned a direct, armed clash of civilizations with the West could spiral into World War III. Yet NATO's Secretary General is now pushing the Allies to swiftly build up their jet fighters, missiles and weaponized drones precisely to avert an all-out war with Russia, which is rearming at a feverish pitch. Across a series of interviews, scholars on Russia's race to expand its wartime armaments say Putin aims to trigger fear and inaction on the part of Ukraine's allies, even as he develops new weapons systems to face off with them. NATO's new call to arms, they say, stands a chance of freezing portions of Putin's masterplan for his tanks and troops to recreate the Russian Soviet Union by reconquering states that have broken free of Moscow's control. NATO chief Mark Rutte, while sketching out the escalating dangers posed by Putin and his expansionist quest, told military experts who gathered in London: 'Because of Russia, war has returned to Europe.' Sounding a worldwide alarm—aimed at defense planners across all 32 NATO nations—Rutte said Russia is teaming up with rogue powers stretching from North Korea to Iran as they strengthen their militaries. 'Putin's war machine is speeding up, not slowing down,' Rutte declared during a talk at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. 'Russia is reconstituting its forces,' the onetime prime minister of the Netherlands said, 'and producing more weapons faster than we thought.' 'In terms of ammunition, Russia produces in three months what the whole of NATO produces in a year.' Moscow's burgeoning defense factories are set to turn out 200 nuclear-capable Iskander missiles and 1500 tanks this year, and production rates are rising. 'Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years: FIVE YEARS!' Rutte warned. Quoting Winston Churchill, from a dramatic speech exhorting the British House of Commons to launch a long-delayed weapons build-up to catch up with the Nazis' rising military power, Rutte said there was no time to lose for Europe to bolster its defenses. 'We need a 400% increase in air and missile defense.' 'We see in Ukraine how Russia delivers terror from above, so we will strengthen the shield that protects our skies.' NATO's allies, he said, need many more missile interceptors, more tanks, more rockets, and more expansive navies, even as they modernize their air forces. As just one step in this direction, he said NATO Allies are set to acquire 700 American F-35 fighter jets. NATO partners, he added, will begin building stockpiles of new-generation drones and missile systems, and step up investment in space technology and cyber-warfare expertise. 'On the battlefields of Ukraine,' Rutte boasted, '$400 drones, used the right way, are taking out $2 million Russian tanks.' 'History has taught us that to preserve peace, we must prepare for war,' he said. Secretary General Rutte suggested that by pumping five percent of each Ally's gross domestic product into this accelerating arms contest with Russia, the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization might become so formidable that Moscow would never dare to attack even a single NATO nation, and that the group's collective defense shield would protect its billion citizens into the future. Yet leading scholars on Russia's defense strategies and new weapons programs say it is virtually impossible to pinpoint exactly how the West's next clash with the Kremlin will start or evolve, or how it could escalate to engulf widening sections of Europe. Some European military experts, along with Putin himself, have projected that Moscow's ongoing missile blitzkrieg of Ukraine could burst into a global conflict. But Spenser Warren, a scholar who is focused on Russia's drive to strengthen its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems, and on its defense strategies, says: 'I don't think you can predict whether or not this or any war will spiral into World War Three.' 'Most conflicts, even ones that start out seemingly small, have pathways for escalation,' he tells me in an interview. 'WW1 started from a single instance of extremist political violence that was fairly mundane at the time, and engulfed an entire continent plus large parts of Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific.' A spectrum of scenarios could spark Russia's invasion of Ukraine to explode beyond the besieged democracy's borders, says Warren, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. 'If Russia broadened its attacks to include Western arms depots in places like Poland that are supplying Ukraine, or if a Russian airstrike killed a visiting U.S./European leader (whether intentionally or not), or if Russian pilots accidentally fired on NATO aircraft or a glitch in their navigation software caused them to mistakenly bomb NATO territory,' he says, the war could swiftly 'escalate into a regional conflict involving the United States and other NATO members.' If a limited clash were to erupt between the Kremlin and NATO nations, Warren says, 'it would be difficult to predict further escalation.' 'Could such a conflict continue to spiral towards a global war?' 'Yes, that is always an incredibly dangerous risk,' he forecasts. Warren says he backs NATO chief Rutte's warnings that the Kremlin could attack a NATO state by the end of the decade. 'There's of course no guarantee that Russia will be able to rebuild its military effectively in that time period.' But as of now, Warren says, 'They are churning out an incredibly high amount of material.' 'It's possible that they can maintain that rate long enough to rebuild or even expand their capabilities.' 'The threat is serious enough that I would agree with the Secretary General that European countries need to be improving their arms industries and increasing defense spending and production.' Europe's failure to match the rapid-fire rise of military rival Moscow—just as France and Britain were overtaken by the meteoric ascent of Hitler and his tanks and Luftwaffe—would make a Russian invasion of one or more EU states more likely. Putin, surrounded by expanding circles of nationalist zealots, has been laying out plans to despatch invading armies to recapture lands that were once part of the Russian Tsarist empires, or the Soviet Union that followed. The most likely scenario, Warren says, would likely start with a lightning attack against "former Russian territories'. 'Russian nationalists produce a lot of rhetoric about reconquering lands that the Russian Empire once held for expansionary purposes,' he says. The Kremlin might opt to attack 'a NATO ally (probably one or more of the Baltics) in blitzkrieg fashion,' he says, 'and seek to end the conflict before the U.S. and NATO can mount a large response.' 'One of the biggest factors, I think, will be Moscow's perception of American commitment to the region.' 'If the Kremlin believes the United States will move to defend its allies—and potentially commit enough forces to rollback Russian troops in someplace like the Baltic States or Poland or Romania—then the chance of Russia attacking goes way down.' 'If they believe the United States won't respond—or think they can create a fait accompli in the Baltics—that risk goes up,' he says. Elena Grossfeld, an expert on Russia's defense and intelligence operations at the prestigious King's College London, says the small, vulnerable Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, taken over by the Soviet Union in just days at the start of the World War II, are likely prime targets in Putin's quest to resurrect imperial Russia. A fluent Russian speaker who closely tracks the Kremlin's evolving wartime strategies and even the Telegram posts by its most fervent militarists, tells me in an interview: 'The Baltics are being thrown around as a target by Russian propagandists, and also by some of Putin's friends.' 'Realistically due to their size, they could be run over pretty fast.' 'If Russia were to think that the U.S. would not interfere beyond issuing statements and offering thoughts and prayers - it's a possibility.' Grossfeld says it is still unclear how strong a defense the U.S. would mount if one of the NATO states, like Lithuania, were captured in an overnight invasion. Article 5 of the NATO treaty states: 'The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.' While every NATO member agrees to join a collective defense, she says, each ally determines its own contribution to that defense, 'which can include military force but does not have to.' With its mixed messages on participating in the joint defense of an invaded NATO partner, the U.S. might be opening the way for a series of Russian attacks on the alliance—always testing whether the U.S. will intervene or become increasingly isolationist. If the White House does pull back, France and Britain, which have already proposed sending peacekeepers into Ukraine after a ceasefire pact is signed, are likely to emerge as the new de facto leaders of NATO in Europe, even as the United States sees its own position on the global stage decline. As part of its ascent as a supreme guardian of the NATO alliance, France could extend its nuclear umbrella to cover all the other NATO partners across Europe. France has its own independent arsenal of nuclear weapons, with both submarine and jet bomber delivery systems. French President Emmanuel Macron, Grossfeld points out, has 'already expressed willingness to engage in discussions about extending France's nuclear deterrent to other European countries. 'France currently has a nuclear weapons stockpile of approximately 290 warheads,' say leading experts at the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project. 'In addition, approximately 80 retired warheads are awaiting dismantlement, giving a total inventory of approximately 370 nuclear warheads.' In a fascinating overview of the French nuclear arsenal and its changing purpose on the world stage, these experts cite French defense ministry commanders as stating the country's nuclear doctrine is 'strictly defensive,' and that using nuclear weapons 'would only be conceivable in extreme circumstances of legitimate self-defense,' involving France's vital interests. With expanding signs of a U.S. withdrawal from the European stage, these experts report, France's use of its nuclear shield is evolving and expanding to cover at least some of its allies. When President Macron sent leading-edge, nuclear-capable Rafale jets on a joint mission to Sweden in April, they say, the French ambassador told his hosts that France's "nuclear umbrella also applies to our allies and of course Sweden is among them.''
