Will NATO Saber Rattling Derail Hopes for Ukraine-Russia Détente?
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/09/03/will-nato-saber-rattling-derail-hopes-ukraine-russia-detente
On the eve of NATO summit, Obama calls for a united front against Russian "aggression" while Putin and Poroshenko negotiate ceasefire
by
Deirdre Fulton, staff writer
The rhetoric around Russia's — and more specifically, Putin's — aggression is misplaced, some experts warn, and threatens to undermine reconciliation. In fact, it could have the opposite effect, provoking a large-scale confrontation between NATO-aligned countries and Russia.
David Gibbs, a professor of history and government at the University of Arizona who has written extensively on NATO, says:
Foreign policy specialists have rightly condemned Russian intervention in the Ukraine, which has aggravated political divisions in that country. At the same time, we should recognize that the United States and NATO have also contributed to the destabilization. Russia’s actions are at least partly a response to policies adopted by the U.S. and NATO immediately following the Cold War.
snip.
"You need to know...that accusations of a major Russian 'invasion' of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence," the memo reads. "If the photos that NATO and the U.S. have released represent the best available “proof” of an invasion from Russia, our suspicions increase that a major effort is under way to fortify arguments for the NATO summit to approve actions that Russia is sure to regard as provocative."
Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians continue to suffer. The UN Refugee Agency estimated Tuesday that 260,000 people have been displaced in Ukraine since the conflict began.
In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said: "If this crisis is not quickly stopped, it will have not only devastating humanitarian consequences but it also has the potential to destabilize the whole region. After the lessons of the Balkans, it is hard to believe a conflict of these proportions could unfold in the European continent."
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or actions will hurt ceasefire negotiations or talks about having them. If ceasefire talks, or discussion points, were not on the table and fighting was continuing, as it is, the angst over what NATO will say or do would be of a different nature.
