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Failed Obama 'Reset' Has Encouraged Russian Aggression
[Daily Signal] People seem a bit surprised--even perplexed--by the breathless news reports and video of Russian warplanes "buzzing" an American warship operating in international waters in the Baltic Sea this week.The reality is that they shouldn’t be. That, of course, isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be deeply troubled for the safety of our sailors on the USS Donald Cook at the hands of some "hot dog" Russian pilots involved in reckless and provocative actions that could have had dire and or unintended consequences. But, that said, there’s a method to Moscow’s madness. First, there’s the matter of geography. The Baltic Sea has long been a Russian security priority. For instance, the Baltic waters lap up against the Russian coast at the iconic city of St. Petersburg (once Leningrad), where a successful invading force could drive into the heart of Russia, including reaching Moscow. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union controlled the southern Baltic Sea coastline from Russia through the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia), across Poland and into East Germany. In Moscow’s eyes at that time, the Baltic Sea should be a Soviet "lake." Today, rather than lined with Soviet Republics and loyal members of the Warsaw Pact, that same coastline is instead populated with NATO states with rough relations with the Russians. That’s not at all comforting to Kremlin & Co. The only section of the southern Baltic Coast that isn’t part of NATO is Kaliningrad, a Russia-controlled outpost between Poland and Lithuania that Russia sees as not only isolated and vulnerable, but strategic to Russian security. Indeed, after the less-than-stellar response to the Crimea crisis, there’s been a constant concern among some that Moscow might try to carve out a Russian-controlled access route to Kaliningrad through NATO member Lithuania Of course, taking on NATO is different than taking on Ukraine. Posted by: Besoeker 2016-04-18 |
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