Following the suspicion of Russia in the Salisbury poisoning of a Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia, the hostility between Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America has continued to strain, even worse than it was in the Cold War.
According to Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, the West is playing “Children’s games”, ignoring all accepted behaviors while resorting to “open lies and information”, in contrast to what obtained during the Cold War.
“In the classic Cold War, there were rules and accepted behaviour.
“I think our Western partners, I think firstly Great Britain and the USA and a few other countries that blindly follow them, have disregarded all the accepted behaviour”.
Russophobia or Truth?
• Salisbury nerve poison; British officials investigating the attempted murder of former Russian double agent, Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, asserts that it is likely an assassin. They smeared the nerve agent on the doorknob at their Salisbury home, with the house having the most concentration of the nerve agent compared to other investigated scenes.
This theory developed by Britain suggests that the operation is one so risky and sensitive that it needed approval from the Kremlin.
British and American authorities are doubtful that such a risky operation could be carried out by independent actors without clearance from Russia’s highest level of government.
Despite Russia’s continuous refutal of involvement in the Salisbury attack, both the UK and USA have insisted that Vladimir Putin was either aware of the attack or ordered it himself, with several diplomatic actions taken against the Country.
About twenty Countries from America and Europe have expelled over 150 Russian diplomats for its alleged involvement in the attack, in retaliation; Russia did same by expelling diplomats from such Countries.
Meanwhile, Lavrov asserts that Britain stood to gain from the attack, following its inability to “fulfill promises they made about Brexit”.
“Experts tell us that it may well be beneficial to the British special services, who are known for their ability to act with license to kill.
Another Russian official has disputed the nerve agent (Novichok) used in the attack.
“Any use of a military-grade poison would inevitably lead to numerous casualties immediately on the site of the poisoning.
“The picture in Salisbury is completely different”.
• World cup 2018; As part of its response to the nerve attack, Britain royal family will shun the World Cup hosted by Russia starting in June.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova says the plot is to “take the World cup out of Russia”
“They will use any means. Their minds are only on that football and God forbid it should touch a Russian football field”.
According to Boris Johnson, Putin is promoting the World Cup to “gloss over his corrupt regime” same way Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Berlin World Cup.
“[The attack] was a sign that President Putin or the Russian state wanted to give to potential defectors in their own agencies: This is what happens to you if you decide to support a country with a different set of values. You can expect to be assassinated”.
A different kind of Cold War
The ideological and military rivalry that existed between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the West from the 1950s to 1980s are quite dissimilar to recent events, apart from the parties involved.
Micheal Kofman, a research scientist at the CAN Corporation and a Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, says the Cold War “was a competition resulting from a bipolar system, where two superpowers, both with economic and military advantages, were competing to shape international politics.
“Their universalist ideologies made this competition inevitable, as did the distribution of power at the time”.
Today’s struggle, however, is due to “conscious decisions made by leaders, the strategies they pursued and a series of definable disagreements in international politics”, which were not “destined or inevitable.
Since the Cold War was a battle for global dominance between Capitalism and Communism, Koffman asserts that for Russia, the present struggle is about “its survival as a power in the international order, and also about holding on to the remnants of the Russian empire”.
“Russian leaders are desperate to avert the further fragmentation of Russian influence and territory. They see no way to do this without maintaining buffer states and imposing their will on neighbours to secure their borders”.
For the United States, Kofman says, it is a confusing conflict, “One aspect of it is a classic tale of hubris and over-extension; that is, too much liberal ideology and not enough thinking about international politics.
“Without any powers to contest American influence for two decades, Washington rightfully took advantage to build what it wanted, but all expansion of influence and power must eventually come with increasing cost, and those costs are starting to multiply in spades”.
