Ahead of this North American offensive, some of the Russian reactions ended up being counter-productive and still reflect a mentality typical of the cold war. For example, Russia put a moratorium on the treaty of conventional forces in Europe, which limits the quantity of armaments in this continent. On the other hand, this action has no practical consequence, since none of the NATO countries ratified this treaty and did not follow it, and Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan were the only ones doing it. Also, it is a moratorium and not a cancellation of the treaty, since Moscow still has hope NATO will make it valid. But on the other hand, this type of action gives argument that they look to show Russia as a warlike country.
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| Eight years of Putin in the Russian Presidency: A balance |
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More intelligent was the reaction of the Russian government to the decision of the USA to construct the anti-missile system in Europe: it proposed the joint use of a radar station for monitoring missiles that Russia operates in Azerbaijan, a constructive and a mutually advantageous alternative, better than one based on the old logic of the cold war of threats and military escalation. Be that as it may, the USA practically rejected this proposal, since they prefer to have an anti-missile system exclusively theirs.
Russia and USA also are in disagreement on the Iranian nuclear program. Though Russia also is preoccupied by the possibility of this country developing atomic arms, it is less alarmist than the North Americans and they do not see problems for Iran to have power stations for generation of energy. However, in the most important question, they both agree and object to the Iranian program of enrichment of uranium, which can be used to produce nuclear weapons. There are important disagreements between Russia and the USA, but they are not insurmountable. There is no new cold war, like many people believe, because Russia has no conditions to compete economically and militarily with the USA as a global power, and it does not even intend to do it. The Russian strategy is multilateralism: to strengthen its alliances with other important countries, and so to reduce the power of US unilateral decisions without confronting them head-on.
Putin explained openly in a frank interview to Time magazine last December (available in the page of the Russian presidency). Finally, last year Putin gave great publicity to the ancient Russian claim to an important part of the Arctic Sea as an economically exclusive zone. Russia is not the only country that claims part of this region (others are the USA, Canada, Denmark and Norway), but the sending of a scientific mission to the bottom of an Arctic (also putting a titanium Russian flag) attracted the attention of worldwide public opinion and showed the technical capacity of Russia to explore and control this inhospitable region.
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