MOSCOW — Russia is facing a heightened risk of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that have the potential of turning nuclear, the nation’s top military officer said Thursday.
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, cautioned over NATO’s expansion eastward and warned that the risks for Russia to be pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.”
Makarov added, according to Russian news agencies, that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”
A steady decline in Russia’s conventional forces has prompted the Kremlin to rely increasingly on its nuclear deterrent.
The nation’s military doctrine says it may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that threatens Russia’s existence.
Russia sees NATO’s expansion to include former Soviet republics and ex-members of the Soviet bloc in eastern and central Europe as a key threat to Russia’s security.
Makarov specifically referred to NATO’s plans to offer membership to Georgia and Ukraine as potentially threatening Russia’s security. Russia routed Georgian forces in a brief August 2008 war over a separatist province of South Ossetia. Moscow later recognized South Ossettia and another breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia as independent states and increased its military presence there.
Russia also considers missile defense plans as another security challenge.
Russia has strongly opposed the U.S.-led missile defense plan, saying it could threaten its nuclear forces and undermine their deterrence potential. Moscow has agreed to consider NATO’s proposal last fall to cooperate on the missile shield, but the talks have been deadlocked over how the system should operate. Russia has insisted that the system should be run jointly, which NATO has rejected.
4 comments:
NATO should stand firm in the face of Russian threats. These former members of the Soviet bloc are independent from Russia, and should be able to join NATO without fear of repercussion. Russia is escalating this matter to try to 'bully' NATO, in order to keep tighter security around her borders, but NATO should continue their expansion.
Russia is just being it's same politically stubborn self. Now, this could potentially be a nuclear war on our hands and the article just doesn't stress as much of what is going on, but from what I can see Russia just doesn't want NATO getting bigger than it is, instead it just wants to be the one with the power.
It almost sounds like Russia is looking for a conflict. I wouldn't think their security would be theratened by the expansion of NATO, then again, I could be under analyzing it.
It's frightening to think that a nuclear war is very much a possibility at the moment. If a full-scale nuclear war were to occur, the effects would be mutually destructive. Even though the threat of these effects has successfully been used as a deterrent for years, the readiness of some countries to use nuclear weapons has decreased the effectiveness of the deterrent and the possibility of a full-scale nuclear war has unfortunately risen.
Post a Comment