Hot and Cold War
It appears the US and UN are convinced the Assad regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack in Syria last week.
Having proclaimed this so, publicly, now means the West is obliged to act. The nature of this action is being considered as I type, but it will almost certainly involve some sort of military intervention.
And this military intervention will clearly fly in the face of Russia's stated position - it has threatened retaliation if the West intervenes in Syria. In the eyes of the West at least, Russia has of late been an increasingly belligerent and outspoken opponent of the US and indeed the UN.
Following on from a recent series of 'diplomatic' disagreements - the cold (and ever cooling) relationship between Obama and Putin amid Moscow's grant of temporary asylum to the National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower, Edward Snowden. Indeed The Australian revealed that a Russian pro-Kremlin broadsheet, the Kommersant, had reported that prior to his flight to Moscow former NSA contractor Snowden had spent several days in the Russian consulate in Hong Kong.
Already high in the wake of the Arab Spring, tensions in the Middle East are quietly, gradually, but persistently on the rise. Some months back we saw the preliminary machinations of US, Iranian and Russian fleets, each now gradually jockeying for strategic positioning and slowly building up their territorial presence.
As we have previously noted, the game of chess has well and truly begun. The positions are being taken up. The rhetoric has begun to fly. A game of chess can start off slow without many or any casualties; but then a single pawn may be followed by another, and a tit-for-tat. A bishop is soon lost at the cost of a knight, before all-out destruction and a final capitulation.
The Cold War is not dead it seems. The Cold War is making a come-back. Worse still, it looks to be hotting up.
Having proclaimed this so, publicly, now means the West is obliged to act. The nature of this action is being considered as I type, but it will almost certainly involve some sort of military intervention.
And this military intervention will clearly fly in the face of Russia's stated position - it has threatened retaliation if the West intervenes in Syria. In the eyes of the West at least, Russia has of late been an increasingly belligerent and outspoken opponent of the US and indeed the UN.
Following on from a recent series of 'diplomatic' disagreements - the cold (and ever cooling) relationship between Obama and Putin amid Moscow's grant of temporary asylum to the National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower, Edward Snowden. Indeed The Australian revealed that a Russian pro-Kremlin broadsheet, the Kommersant, had reported that prior to his flight to Moscow former NSA contractor Snowden had spent several days in the Russian consulate in Hong Kong.
Already high in the wake of the Arab Spring, tensions in the Middle East are quietly, gradually, but persistently on the rise. Some months back we saw the preliminary machinations of US, Iranian and Russian fleets, each now gradually jockeying for strategic positioning and slowly building up their territorial presence.
As we have previously noted, the game of chess has well and truly begun. The positions are being taken up. The rhetoric has begun to fly. A game of chess can start off slow without many or any casualties; but then a single pawn may be followed by another, and a tit-for-tat. A bishop is soon lost at the cost of a knight, before all-out destruction and a final capitulation.
The Cold War is not dead it seems. The Cold War is making a come-back. Worse still, it looks to be hotting up.
28 August
ReplyDeletehttp://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/28/uk-syria-crisis-idUKBRE97K0AJ20130828