Stephen F. Cohen — The American Bipartisan Policy Establishment Declares Its ‘Second Cold War’ vs. Russia After Years of Denying It

The most influential US foreign-policy membership society has issued a report affirming the new Cold War and its eagerness to fight it.

Here we go again. Cold War = arms race.

The US military has been advancing on Russia and China for years and Russia and China have responded to the perceived threat predictably by arming up. Now the US is claiming that Russia and China are threatening US interests and the US needs to commit more resources in order to stay on top.

It's a self-augmenting cycle and that the rate it is going it won't end until WWIII.

American Committee for East-West Accord
The American Bipartisan Policy Establishment Declares Its ‘Second Cold War’ vs. Russia After Years of Denying It

Stephen F. Cohen | Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History, and Politics at New York University and Princeton University

See also. I rate it a must-read.

If we are to understand the policy options being considered by Russian elites, including by the occupant of the Kremlin, we must understand in depth the contempt and derision with which they speak of the U.S. today in media directed at the home audience.

Amidst all the hullaballoo in U.S. media over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections and ongoing threats to American democracy, the broad public may be forgiven for not noticing that the U.S.A. is day by day massively interfering in the Russian presidential campaign with a view to turning elites and the electorate against the front-runner, Vladimir Putin, and at the same time at discrediting the entire process. These are not allegations: they are verifiable facts that can be spotted in the daily news, but they go unobserved because they appear separately, each with its own separate plausible explanation, and the media never connect the dots. I have in mind such details as...

It is sheer madness for Americans to ignore these realities, as is today the case. So long as the conduct of U.S. policy towards Russia remains in the hands of those who guided it under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, people who believe that Russia can be broken by “non-kinetic” means, we are on a trajectory to precisely kinetic solutions, meaning armed conflict, in which who strikes first may also strike last. And for precisely the same reasons of unwillingness to penetrate the Russian psyche, and see what makes them tick, it is more likely that the Russians will strike first when we cross their final red line....

Une parole franche
‘Total War’ Led by the U.S. and Russia’s Predicament over How to RespondGilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.