Nuclear Precipice: Back to the Future

By Chief | on March 31, 2016 |

The Nuclear precipice is deja vu all over again. It is a Back to the Future Cold War moment for many who grew up with the threat of nuclear war always in the back of the mind. It appears we are back in time. The latest generations do not know what the Cold War was/is.

Wikipedia states: The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact). Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but 1947–91 is common.

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NATO and Russia Return to the Nuclear Precipice

By Nick Ritchie and Peter Rutland at The National Interest

In one year’s time, it is possible that Donald Trump will be sitting in the White House. Across Europe, too, nationalist leaders are on the rise.

What are the security implications of these developments?

One of the most pressing threats to European security is a belligerent Russia, willing to use armed force and breach the sovereignty of other states in defense of its interests.

Despite encouraging signs of cooperation in Syria, both NATO and Russia now risk cementing a deeply hostile and overtly nuclearized confrontation over Ukraine and the “post-Soviet space.”

The most likely flashpoint for a confrontation with Russia is the Baltic. This was the assumption behind an alarming drama that the BBC aired in February,World War Three, in which former British officials conducted a simulation involving a Russian plot to support ethnic Russian separatists in eastern Latvia. The exercise ended with a full-scale nuclear conflict.

NATO has decided to beef up its presence in the Baltic states, to demonstrate that it has a “credible commitment” to defend member states under Article V of the NATO charter.

In 2014 the United States launched the European Reassurance Initiative, which involves rotating U.S. brigades to Poland and the Baltic states, forward positioning of military equipment, and military aid.