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Russia and the US Are Going Back to the Cold War
During the Cold War, the US and Russia faced each other in different ways. The Russian Federation is starting some of those old games, partly because it wants to show it can push the United States around. The near collision in the Philippine sea falls in that category. So are the intercepts by the US Air Force of Russian bombers.
These games are dangerous, but they are yet one more escalation from the war in the shadows, one that President Donald Trump seems oddly not preoccupied with. It is almost as if the goal of the present president is not to confront Vladimir Putin, who did put his finger on the scale of the 2016 election. How do we know? Not only did the first part of the Mueller Report tell us this, but Putin said that yes, he preferred Trump during the Helsinki summit.
So why is the Russian Federation going back to its old games? Putin has seen very little pushback from the present administration. There are some strategic goals for the Russian Federation that fit this. The first is a tightening alliance with China. Incidentally, as a Russian destroyer was heading on a collision course with an American vessel, Putin and Xi Jinping are meeting at this time. This was hardly a coincidence.
This does not mean that the Russians are trying to blame the United States. The video released by the US Navy shows…