Chilly Strategic Tension between the US and Russia

The cold strategic tensions between Moscow and Washington start in the Syrian arena, take a detour through Georgia, and come to a stop at Kaliningrad, in the heart of Northern Europe.

Along the political and geographic borders that separate Europe from Syria, Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine and the Baltic, there are points of tension between the two world powers. Washington tries to push Russia into these regions, seeing its proximity along its western border. These land borders have been a threat to Russia throughout history. This vast geopolitical area is also vital to Russian influence, as much of the terrain was part of the former Soviet Union. The Russian Federation inherited it all, just as it sponsored all of the treaties that were signed within the former Union.

When Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu says that NATO seeks to bring back Cold War confrontations, this statement cannot be brushed aside. Foreign ministers and ambassadors don’t just haphazardly wade into unneeded diplomatic disputes. This past July 6, Shoygu announced that American B-52 bombers were running drills above the waters of the Black Sea and Baltic Sea to launch strikes on Russian territory. Clearly, Cold War tensions exist between the two formidable giants.

The situation is moving forward differently than before, in the sense that Moscow has started to recognize the unipolarity that Washington has pushed since 1990. The United States of America still sees Russia as a strategic opponent, despite the huge gap in terms of economic power and naval strength between the two sides. But the scales are, without any doubt, tilted in favor of the the United States.

America was not the only country to conduct reconnaissance; spy planes of other allied countries also flew near Russian borders. On Sept. 7, Russian warplanes intercepted British and Norwegian spy planes above the north Barents Sea and forced them to leave the area. These recon missions were actually permitted under the Treaty on Open Skies of 2002, which included 32 countries, among them the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia. Yet Russia took Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the treaty last May as a complete nullification of the treaty.

The mutual accusations between the two parties continued after the Intermediate-Nuclear Forces Treaty of August 2019. Washington and Moscow reached an agreement on this treaty in 1987, but it went up in smoke with the overnight emergence of European missile bases.

Today, Russia accuses NATO of employing missile bases close to its borders with the Czech Republic and Poland. Meanwhile, NATO accuses Russia of moving powerful missile enclaves to the strategic Kaliningrad zone.

The clashes between Russian and American soldiers in northeastern Syria this past Aug. 25 have also heightened tensions. A number of American soldiers were wounded, prompting U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien to threaten to retaliate.

The American strategic footholds in Syria are no less important than the Russian ones. With Syria’s regional and international influence, it holds great influence among America’s foreign involvements, especially with the Kurdish SDF forces in northern Syria (which, by the way, have crucial reserves of oil and gas).

Finally, the newest development in the cold tensions: the Herculean military exercise known as Noble Partner, which took place from Aug. 8 to 18 in Tbilisi. Two thousand eight hundred soldiers and officials from the United States, France, Poland and the United Kingdom took part in the spectacle. Even with the assurance of Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia that the goal of the exercise is to strengthen ties with Europe, Moscow expressed its disdain for the event, saying that the inclusion of Georgia in NATO is a direct threat to its national security. This could bring about the return of tensions in Tbilisi and within the region of Ossetia and Abkhazia, which announced their succession from Georgia in 2008 following the Russian military entry into Georgia.

Russia continually tries to keep the upper hand on Eurasia, but the threat of one-upmanship is greater than ever before.