While continuing to exchange barbs, the West and Russia are building a more institutionalized pattern of standoff in Europe that involves increasingly predictable ###-for-tat mirrored actions. Both sides profess their actions to be purely defensive, but these are increasingly robust defenses.
...The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) forces are running a series of military exercises in the Baltic region...Russia, in turn, began massive snap exercises this week...both sides are eyeing each other’s moves attentively.
...In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea and the outburst of fighting in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, the West’s reaction was dismay, close to panic...The worst expectations did not materialize: Russia-backed forces did not march west from Donbas to take Russian-speaking southern Ukraine up to Odesa or link up with the Russian garrison in Moldova’s breakaway territory of Transnistria. Romania and Bulgaria do not seem to be directly threatened, and Ukraine is still resisting. Western defense arrangements in Europe are being shifted to the Baltics and Poland, which look more potentially exposed.
...a standoff may be forming, like around Berlin during the Cold War, with threat balanced by counter-threat, force—with counter-force. If meticulously maintained, this standoff could be relatively stable.
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
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