NATO official: Russia now an adversary
After two decades of trying to build a partnership with Russia, NATO now feels compelled to start treating Moscow as an adversary, the alliance's second-ranking official said Thursday.
"Clearly the Russians have declared NATO as an adversary, so we have to begin to view Russia no longer as a partner but as more of an adversary than a partner," said Alexander Vershbow, the deputy secretary-general of NATO.
In a question-and-answer session with a small group of reporters, Vershbow said Russia's annexation of Crimea and its apparent manipulation of unrest in eastern Ukraine have fundamentally changed the NATO-Russia relationship.
"In central Europe, clearly we have two different visions of what European security should be like," Vershbow, a former U.S. diplomat and onetime Pentagon official, said. "We still would defend the sovereignty and freedom of choice of Russia's neighbors, and Russia clearly is trying to re-impose hegemony and limit their sovereignty under the guise of a defense of the Russian world."
http://news.yahoo.com/nato-official-russia-now-adversary-150211090--politics.html
cprise
(8,445 posts)...that Georgia started.
NATO is the largest military empire the world has ever seen, with a budget that dwarfs Russia + China's combined. And the NATO member states themselves are arguably the most aggressive in the world.
Objectively, I think NATO's rhetoric is just catching up with their attitude (...and their reason for being).
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)cprise
(8,445 posts)...but ever so useful as a launchpad for nuclear missiles.