Russia has just revised its military doctrin, and ……… wait for it nostalgia buffs ……… gone back to declaring NATO to be its primary threat:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed into law a new defense doctrine that identifies NATO as the chief threat to Russian security and claims the right to use nuclear weapons to counter any aggression that “threatens the very existence” of Russia.
The revisions to the 2010 defense mission statement were few but appeared intended to put further pressure on the United States and the Western military alliance to cease courting Ukraine as an economic and strategic ally.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has moved forces closer to Russia’s borders in response to the Kremlin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in March and its dramatically increased challenges of the alliance’s airspace and maritime borders. NATO officials report that the number of aerial and maritime intrusions by Russian fighter jets in the Baltic Sea area has more than tripled this year over last.
The new defense doctrine cites NATO troop deployments and induction of former Soviet-allied states as the top threat to Russian security. It also deems the developing Prompt Global Strike program of the United States as hostile. The precision weapons system is being designed to be able to strike anywhere in the world so swiftly that the target has too little time to respond.
The new doctrine also mentions NATO missile defense plans as destabilizing and for the first time identifies a priority for Russia to protect its natural resource and maritime interests in the Arctic Sea.
The Neocon’s little adventure in the Ukraine is the gift that keeps giving.
The insane interventionist streak that oozed out of the American foreign policy establishment at the end of the Cold War is dangerous and insane, but it remains the consensus within the halls of government.
It’s like our government is being run by a bunch of rabid wolverines.