Back in the late 1980s, U.S. experts bandied about four ideas that came to form the basis of American foreign policy. All these provisions were set forth in the 1991 National Security Strategy of the United States:
- The end of the Cold War has not led to the achievement of a key U.S. objective: Soviet military potential has not been dismantled on the model of Germany and Japan after World War II;
- In the foreseeable future, Russia will remain the only country in the world with the technical capacity to destroy the strategic potential of the United States;
- Washington needs to justify the presence of its Armed Forces on the territory of its allies, such as the European countries of NATO, Japan and South Korea;
- The United States must lead the fight against “non-traditional threats,” including transnational terrorism.
These points were ultimately enshrined in the 1995 National Military Strategy of the United States, which stipulated that the U.S. Department of Defense would counter states attempting to revise the post-1991 world order.
To achieve these goals, the United States needed to maintain military superiority, provide security guarantees to allies, and demonstrate willingness to use force in proportion to the nature of the threat.…
The novelty of the 2015 National Military Strategy is in the setting of priorities.
Foremost among the potential threats is Russia. The document states that Moscow “has repeatedly shown disregard for the sovereignty of its neighbors and willingness to use force to achieve its goals.”
Next is Iran, which is accused of developing nuclear weapons and destabilizing the Middle East. In third place is North Korea, similarly castigated for producing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and threatening America’s regional allies, Japan and South Korea.
Fourth place is occupied by China, described as a threat to regional security, especially in the South China Sea. Only then is the fight against terrorist organizations mentioned.
Moreover, Russia and China are cited in the same context as Iran and North Korea.
Almost all U.S. administrations have segregated these countries, stressing that Iran and North Korea are “rogue states.” Now the Obama administration has put all four countries in one context. Does this mean that the current U.S. administration has moved Russia and China into the category of “rogue states”?
Another alarming signal is that the international community is said to be coordinating efforts in the fight against all four threats. The fact that Iran and North Korea are excluded from the “international community” in the U.S. meaning is taken as a real fact.Russia Direct | Opinion
How the US military plans to neutralize Russia
Alexey Fenenko
In the context of this war in Ukraine, many sympathetic to both Russia's aim of building a multi-polar world with BRICS nations, and to the revolution in Novorossiya, have at the very least been scratching their heads whenever Putin would continue to refer to these obvious opponents as "partners".
But it happened, Putin now calls the west 'geopolitical opponents'. It will remain to be seen if the term 'partners' will still be used, as in 'trade partners' - certainly one can be a trade partner and a geopolitical opponent at the same time. The history of international relations informs us of as much.
We have to keep in mind a few things. The first is that the Russians use their words very carefully. They never engage in saber rattling, and they do not make threats. They have policies, and they make promises. Russia, strangely - at least for those of us in the west - makes use of its double-speak in a highly consistent way. They aren't all over the place with it, and they are almost never reactive.
The other is that the words match their policy. Again, that doesn't mean they aren't capable of double-speak - referring to clear "opponents" as "partners" is one giant and obvious example. But so long as they consistently referred to these powers in the west as "partners" it was clear what kind of relationship they wanted to build, or maintain.…
All of that said, this change in the discourse - from partners to opponents - tells us a lot.
Russia doesn't shift its words around on a daily basis like the US, and they do not suffer from a bi-polar condition in expressing their foreign policy.
Russia wants the West to know that its days of working towards collaboration in general terms, have officially come to an end.***Transcript of Putin's address, from Kremlin.ru, to the Russian Security Council:….
Fort Russ
This is not looking good, except for the military-industrial-governmental complex.
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