Tag: Russia

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America’s Manned Space Program Vanishing

Nations that look to their future needs and opportunities, despite current challenges, tend to succeed.  Those that don’t risk being consigned to the dustbin of history.

In terms of technology, national security, and economic expansion, funding support for NASA represents a clear example of how vested the nation’s leadership is in developing a bright future for the country. That’s why the 1%, $186 million cut in NASA’s budget, from $17.646 billion to $17.460 has many worried. In a time of unacceptable deficits, the reduction may at first appear small, until a closer examination reveals that even without the cut, the space agency was significantly underfunded.

In a move that encapsulates the President’s shaky relations with the legislative branch, he reneged on a funding agreement that had been reached previously about the space agency’s budget.

The evidence is clear cut, especially in comparison to other nations that are now surpassing America. China is pursuing a vigorous program, including the orbiting of its own crewed space station and the development of plans to put a manned base on the moon. Russia, too, has ambitious plans. Right now, those two nations, both deeply antagonistic to the U.S., are the only countries capable of putting humans into space.  America’s return to the high frontier continues to slip further into the future.

Even after knowing those negative impacts of social media and networking canada pharmacy viagra sites. They do not discuss their issues easily. canadian pharmacies tadalafil Are you blighted cheap viagra generic by a total lack of erection, while many men face an irregularity with erection disorder might not get Erection disorder drugs, the unnaturally made types have been verified to show damaging unintended effects. Reduced levels of testosterone lower desire for lovemaking. cheap buy viagra An unusually blunt and furious exchange took place in Congress recently between Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Brooks has long criticized President Obama’s decision to end the ability of the U.S. to put astronauts in orbit by eliminating the space shuttles.

“This Administration,” Brooks stated, “Made the decision to mothball our space shuttles and put them in museums rather than keeping them available…”   His comments, reported by MSNBC,  lambasted the White House’s funding priorities by stating that Obama spends “40 times more on welfare programs that put a high priority on buying election votes no matter the loss of funding for NASA, national defense, or other productive functions of the federal government.”

Some of the criticism is bipartisan.  The powerful head of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, Democrat Barbara Milkulski (D-Maryland) has vowed to restore funding at least to last year’s level.

Manned space programs have been particularly hard hit. The Chair of the House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee, Rep. Stephen Palazzo (R-Mississippi) has called the cumulative $330 million reduction to the development of  Orion manned space craft and the Space Launch System designed to put that craft into space unacceptable. The goal of using commercial craft developed by U.S. companies to put Americans into space has been delayed until 2017, leaving America reliant on Russia.

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Last US tanks leave Europe

The news is quite startling: There are no longer any American tanks stationed in Europe. The story has been largely ignored by the major media. The information was provided in an article in the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes.

According to the Department of Defense, at its peak, Germany, the main center of NATO activity during the first Cold War, was home to 20 U.S. armored divisions, with about 6,000 tanks. Despite the glaring revival of threats from Moscow, the United States no longer has any tanks, the pivotal weapon in land combat, stationed on the entire continent. The entire combined tank forces of all NATO nations on the European continent (including the United Kingdom and Turkey) does not come close to equaling Russian numbers.

Mr. Obama’s extreme views on the lack of need for tanks became an issue in the 2012 campaign, when vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan  criticized the President’s attempt to shut down the only American plant that produces them.

For those who believe that airpower can be used to deter the massive advantage Russia has in tanks, there is further bad news: Washington is seriously considering retiring the Air Force’s tank-killing fighter, the A-10 “Warthog.” According to Defense Secretary Hagel’s February statement,  “The A-10’s age is also making it much more difficult and costly to maintain. Significant savings are only possible through eliminating the entire fleet, because of the fixed cost of maintaining the support apparatus associated with that aircraft. Keeping a smaller number of A-10s would only delay the inevitable while forcing worse trade-offs elsewhere.”
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There are no new weapons systems or innovative methods coming on line that will take over the tank’s front-line tasks.  Indeed, even if there were, there are no funds available to fund them. Another armored development program, the Ground Combat vehicle, a multi-purpose platform, has been defunded.

According to current plans, by 2020, there will be only 30,000 American troops in Europe, approximately one-tenth of the maximum strength during the first Cold War. This spring, further cuts to U.S. military infrastructure in Europe will be presented.

These actions take place in the face of massive new funding for the Russian military, as well as exceptionally aggressive behavior on the part of the Kremlin.

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What the Cook Incident Reveals

What is the practical meaning of yesterday’s revelation that a Russian FENCER jet fighter made twelve low level passes over the U.S.S. Donald Cook, a destroyer, in international waters on the Black Sea?

The incident takes place as Russian military forces are positioned to illegally seize more Ukrainian territory, and Moscow-supported agent provocateurs foment chaos in the eastern portion of that nation. These factors represent the immediate background leading to the increasingly tense relations between U.S. forces in Europe and Russia’s military. However, larger issues play a key and perhaps even larger role than Moscow’s Crimean anschluss.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, both western and Russian military forces were significantly reduced.  NATO, of course, grew in membership and geography as the Kremlin’s Warsaw Pact disintegrated, and the vast Red Army returned home to Russia.

But while the west gained significantly, it also slashed its own defense structure. American military cuts were dramatic.  The navy has reached its smallest size since before World War I, and the Air Force is smaller than at any time in its history, flying aircraft that are exceptionally old. The American nuclear arsenal is dangerously antiquated and inadequately tested.

Since the Obama Administration took office, this situation has become significantly worse. A further $1.3 trillion has been slashed from the ten-year defense budget. Geopolitically, the rise of China has made America’s national security posture far more challenged and vulnerable.
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NATO has followed a similar course of disinvestment in armed strength.

The picture from Moscow is significantly different. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s conventional and strategic armed forces have undergone a renaissance.  A comprehensive modernization program fueled by extraordinary amounts of cash has produced an exceptionally well-equipped and capable military.

That rejuvenated armed force has flexed its muscles through invasions into Georgia and Crimea, and a return to military cooperation with Cuba and other Latin American nations.

The harassment of the U.S.S. Donald Cook was an indication of the changing positions of the military positions of the America and Russia, Moscow’s improved geopolitical fortunes, and the Kremlins’ growing confidence in its newly developed strength.

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US Cuts Nuclear Arms as Russia Moves Ahead

President Obama is conducting, without the consent of Congress or the American public, a high-risk experiment in unilateral disarmament.  He is doing so despite all evidence that his concept is fundamentally flawed. His action is exceptionally endangering the safety and sovereignty of both the United States and its allies.

Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, and Elaine Bunn, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, testified last week before the House Armed Services Committee  that the United States will cut nuclear stockpiles under the New START treaty with Russia.

In October, Russia tested it SS-25 mobile ICBM, the fourth time in the past two years it engaged in tests violative of the 1987 agreement. In January, the treaty was again violated by the deployment of the RS-26 missile test.

In January, it became public that Russia was also violating the 1987 missile treaty. Despite that fact, the U.S. has taken no action.

The Administration’s move comes despite Russia’s placement of nuclear-armed ISKANDER missiles on the border of Europe in response to absolutely no threat from NATO.
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It is done in compliance with a treaty despite Moscow’s obvious current and historical record of treaty violations, in response to a treaty that was bad for the United States since it allowed Moscow a 10-1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, and one that is especially inappropriate in the face of the dramatic change in international conditions since the rise of China as a nuclear power that is hostile to the United States and its allies.

In addition to the development and deployment of new atomic weapons systems, Russia has engaged in updating and testing of its nuclear weapons, while the American arsenal has gone untested and un-updated for decades.

President Obama’s planned cutback comes in the face of undeniable evidence of massive Russian cheating.  It comes at a time when Russia has evidenced its hostile intent through its invasion of Crimea, its threats to other parts of the former Soviet Empire, and its return to engagement in military-related activities in Latin America, especially in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. It comes as the United States has slashed its military spending, while Russia and China dramatically expand their armed forces budget.

A full analysis of the nuclear weapons reduction issue will be published Monday, April 14.

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US Slashes Military as Russia Expands

 As the United States continues to slash military funding and President Obama advocates unilateral nuclear reductions, Russia is rapidly and substantially increasing both its strategic and conventional armed forces.

Over the past five years, the United States has cancelled or indefinitely postponed numerous key weapons systems, including those involving advanced missile defense, strategic bombers, strategic submarine programs, and others. The numbers of those existing systems have shrunk to levels not seen since before the Second World War, including a naval force reduced to World War One size. It’s not just the numbers that are worrisome-although at less than half their 1990 numbers that is significant enough-it’s the condition the remaining equipment is in that troubles observers. The existing U.S. arsenal is increasingly old to the point of being dangerous to use.

According to a Foundry review, “… the U.S. is the only state with nuclear weapons without a substantive nuclear weapons modernization program. Since New START entered into force, the Russians have announced the most massive nuclear weapons build-up since the end of the Cold War. Over time, if the U.S. does not change its policy or Russia adopts a fundamentally different strategic posture, Washington policymakers will be left with a qualitative and quantitative disadvantage vis-à-vis Moscow and potentially other nuclear-armed states.”

U.S. planning centers on the belief that the Cold War is over, but Russia does not concur. Indeed, Moscow has taken precisely the opposite course. As noted by NTI,

“Once Russia completes recapitalization and modernization of its strategic triad, the structure and composition will largely mirror the strategic triad the Soviet Union created during the Cold War, and that Russia attempted to maintain following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.”

While the terms of the New START treaty adopted in the first Obama term left the U.S. and Russia in rough numerical strategic nuclear parity, it overlooked a needed ban on Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle warheads (MIRVs). As a result, Russia “out-MIRVS“the U.S. by one per each accountable deployed delivery system. Further, Moscow is rapidly gaining the advantage due to the diverse treatment of each nation’s arsenal.

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America’s strategic weaponry is aged and increasingly unreliable.  In contrast, Russia is diligently and rapidly modernizing its forces. As noted by the New Deterrent Working Group:

“As America refrains from modernizing its deterrent, Russia is demonstrably relying ever more heavily on its nuclear forces, which are being systematically built up…they are working hard on a range of nuclear improvements and also on consolidating their advantage in short range nuclear weapons in order to dominate their neighbors. The Kremlin is simultaneously engaging more and more direct nuclear threats against our allies, eroding confidence in the United States’ extended deterrent.  An Moscow is irrefutably doing hydronuclear and hydrodynamic experiments at Novaya Zemlya, underground nuclear testing of a sort the United States claims is impermissible under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and that it has, as a signatory…forsworn.”

Russia has actually increased the danger of nuclear weapons use in recent years. The Congressional Research Services study released in January discusses Moscow’s growing emphasis on nonstrategic atomic arms:

“Russia has altered and adjusted the Soviet nuclear strategy to meet its new circumstances in a post-Cold War world. It explicitly rejected the Soviet Union’s no-first-use pledge in 1993, indicating that it viewed nuclear weapons as a central feature in its military and security strategies. However, Russia did not maintain the Soviet Union’s view of the need for nuclear weapons to conduct surprise attacks or preemptive attacks. Instead, it seems to view these weapons as more defensive in nature, as a deterrent to conventional or nuclear attack and as a means to retaliate and defend itself if an attack were to occur.

“Russia has revised its national security and military strategy several times in the past 20 years, with successive versions appearing to place a greater reliance on nuclear weapons. For example, the military doctrine issued in 1997 allowed for the use of nuclear weapons “in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation.” The doctrine published in 2000 expanded the circumstances when Russia might use nuclear weapons to include attacks using weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies “as well as in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” In mid-2009, when discussing the revision of Russia’s defense strategy that was expected late in 2009 or early 2010, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Presidential Security Council, indicated that Russia would have the option to launch a “preemptive nuclear strike” against an aggressor “using conventional weapons in an all-out, regional, or even local war.”

Moscow is expected to increase military spending by $770 billion within the current decade, and that is just the public portion of the nation’s armed forces budget.  Nuclear weapons expenditures will be hiked by 50% in the next two years.

As President Obama seeks to close down the only American plant manufacturing tanks, Russia plans to add 2,300 new tanks.

Putin’s air force will fly 1,200 new helicopters and planes, and his navy will float fifty new surface ships, including a new missile sub.

Within a year, PRAVDA notes, 40 new intercontinental missiles will be deployed.  In 2013, Russia’s powerful new YARS mobile ICBMs were deployed. The Iskander tactical mobile nuclear missiles were positioned to threaten Europe.

More Missile defense radars wll be fielded and the Triumph missile defense will be implemented this year-an irony considering Moscow’s opposition to U.S. missile defense plans.

Russia’s emphasis on the need for tactical nuclear weapons in response to conventional threats appears unnecessary.  According to the New York Times American forces in Europe have been sharply reduced, dropping from 400,000 to 67,000.  The arsenal of weapons at the disposal of the U.S. military in Europe is said to be 85% smaller than in 1989.

Moscow is deploying its modernized military in areas immediately threatening to the United States. It is establishing a presence  in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Putin has also ordered his forces to establish a significant presence in the Arctic.

President Obama’s belief that Russia is only a “regional power” is truly bizarre in light of these statistics, and his policy of unilateral arms reduction appears to be exceptionally imprudent.

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Obama’s Odd View on Russian Power

The President recently stated that Russia was only a “regional power.”  We recently reviewed the facts to determine whether there is any realistic basis for Mr. Obama’s unexpected contention.

Of course, the first question to arise is, which region is the Comander-in-Chief referring to. Moscow’s vast domain  stretches from Europe to the borders of Iran in the Middle East to the farthest shores of Asia and the Pacific Ocean, and of course the Arctic as well.  Geographically, it is almost impossible to proclaim Russia as a regional power when its territory, the largest on Earth, is so vast.

In terms of strategic power, it is quite difficult to understand how the Russian nuclear arsenal could be remotely considered as regional. Certainly, it’s triad of ICBMs, many with multiple warheads, nuclear bombers and nuclear capable submarines both of which currently patrol the U.S. coasts,  are the equal of America’s.  Additionally, its mobile launchers provide the Kremlin with perhaps the most survivable land-based strategic nuclear weapons system on the planet.

In terms of land power, Russia vastly outstrips the US in the numbers of tanks, mobile artillery, and rocket projectors

Nor can it be said that the Kremlin’s weapons systems are second rate.  Its nuclear arsenal is more up to date than Americas, and much of its conventional arsenal is first rate. Mr. Putin has pledged to spend over $770 billion in further upgrades, including a sizeable sum for its navy.

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Putin also is militarizing the Arctic as well.

In a new wrinkle, Russia’s growing alliance with China gives the Kremlin a global reach in excess of that it enjoying during the Cold War.

All this is being done as the U.S. slashes its military fuding and Europe continues  starve their armed forces of necessary financial support.

We find no basis for President Obama’s contention.

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U.S. Faces Military Threat from Russia, China & Iran in Latin America

As Moscow’s army and Navy invaded the Ukraine last week, Russian warships again docked in Cuba, part of President Putin’s goal of reconstituting the influence of the former Soviet Union in some Latin American nations.

Moscow is not the only anti-American nation to make military advances on our southern border.

China has spent vast sums on developing both military and civilian infrastructure facilities in the region. Much of Beijing’s investment has been in strategic infrastructure, including port facilities on both the East and West sides of the Panama Canal, and, as expert Dr. Evan Ellis has noted, airport facility in Freeport, The Bahamas, just 65 miles from the USA, and a deep sea port in Suriname.

Familiarizing its military with the region, China has deployed peacekeeping forces to Haiti, and a naval hospital ship to Cuba. Ellis notes that “The PRC also conducts significant interactions with the militaries of virtually all of the Caribbean nations with which it has diplomatic relations.  A series of senior level Caribbean military leaders have visited China in the past two years…At a lower level, people-to-people military interactions have included inviting uniformed Caribbean military personnel and defense civilians for professional education trips to the PRC…The PLA donated $3.5 million in non-lethal military equipment to the Jamaica defense Force in 2010….The PLA is also reported to have personnel at Soviet-era intelligence collection facilities in Bejucal, Lourdes, and Santiago de Cuba…”

The U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission reports that Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia and Cuba now maintain strong ties to the Chinese military “through a high number of official visits, military officer exchanges, port calls, and limited arms sales.”  Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have begun to buy Chinese arms and military equipment, including radar and aircraft.  Bolivia has signed a military cooperation agreement with China.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has also been active in supporting forces hostile to U.S. interests.

Despite all of those facts, and the ongoing repression of freedom in Cuba and Venezuela, the White House has chosen to remain oblivious. When President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, delivered the 2014 Worldwide Threat Assessment to Congress, he made no mention of Russian, Chinese and Iranian military moves.

The willful blindness of U.S. officials, symbolized by President Obama’s handshake with Raul Castro, extends to a number of elected officials.  Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) has long been friendly with both the Castro regime in Havana and the successors to Venezuela’s socialist strongman Hugo Chavez.  NYC’s Mayor, Bill DiBlasio, was an ardent supporter of Nicaragua’s Sandinista movement, which had, during the 1980’s, invited the Soviet military onto its shores.

As all of this has occurred, indeed, has accelerated, as the White House continues to defund the U.S. military.

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Ukraine Gave Peace a Chance. It Didn’t Work

When it finally broke free from its years of domination by the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power on the planet. Rather than continue in that role, the nation voluntarily gave up its ultimate military trump card in return for guarantees provided in the 1995 Budapest Memorandum.

Those promises, signed by US President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and UK Prime Minister John Major, guaranteed the “independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and a guarantee to “refrain from the threat of use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”

Russia has clearly violated that accord, and the promises made by the United States and the United Kingdom have been proven worthless.
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The United States has signed a number of military accords with Moscow, including, most recently, the New START treaty,  a key portion of the Obama/Clinton “Reset” policy with Russia, which ignored the Kremlin’s 10-1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons. There is substantial agreement that despite the advantageous position gained by Russia, that nation is cheating both the letter and the spirit of those accords.

The fervent hopes of those current intellectual heirs of the “Give Peace a Chance” and “Nuclear Freeze” movements, including the current Obama Administration, have been clearly dashed.

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Russia Resurgent, America Diminished

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Last June, The NEW YORK ANALYSIS reviewed the resurgence of the Russian military.  The funds that have been committed, the statements by Kremlin officials, and the deployment of new arms systems indicate that Moscow is in the midst of an exceptionally significant arms buildup. 

One salient question remained, however.  Would the foreign policy of the Russian Federation prove as aggressive as its military buildup?

That question has been effectively addressed by the invasion and annexation of Crimea.

 Neither foreign nor military policies exist in a vacuum.  Vladimir Putin’s actions should be examined in the context of the threats and opportunities he believes face his nation.  His statement that “The greatest tragedy of the 20th Century was the collapse of the Soviet Union” provides significant insight into the international perspective currently guiding Moscow’s worldview. 

During most of the presidency of George W. Bush, the United States, aroused by the Islamist assault of 9/11, held a muscular foreign policy and a well-funded military.  (It should be noted, however, that it was a military that was not focused on potential conflicts with great powers such as Russia or China.)  While Moscow was not entirely quiescent–it employed its vast oil reserves as a wedge to influence European politics–it did not act openly belligerent, and even expressed commonality with the West in areas such as anti-terrorism. However, Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, during a period in which the United States was already heavily involved in military action in Afghanistan and still entrenched in Iraq, signaled an end to that period of relative restraint.

Any vestige of a restrained perspective was substantially altered following the American elections of 2008. The Obama/Clinton “Reset” with Moscow was established by that new President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton without regard to reciprocity on the Kremlin’s part.  The policy has subsequently proven to be an embarrassment, and Secretary of State Kerry responded to a recent inquiry concerning it by claiming he didn’t know what the reporter was referring to .

As noted by commentator Rich Lowry in Politico, “It didn’t take a student of Russian history, or of international relations…to know this would end in ashes…at one level, the Obama Administration was guilty of the human impulse of wanting to see the world as you would like rather than as it is. At another, the President is not particularly interested in foreign relations.  It was appropriate that one of his statements on the [Crimean] crisis came at an elementary school while he was announcing his latest budget, which reduces the U.S. Army to pre-World War II levels.  Because we all know that we will never face an unexpected, unpredictable crisis again.”

New START’s Effect

Ignoring the uncomfortable reality of Moscow’s Georgian invasion, the Obama Administration moved quickly to adopt the New START nuclear arms treaty.

One of the key problems with the treaty had nothing to do with either Russia or the United States.  Those two nations are no longer the only two powers with multi-faceted and devastatingly powerful nuclear arms.  Leaving China out of any agreement is essentially to ignore a massive change in the international environment. With the growing rapprochement between Russia and China, including joint war games and mutually supportive foreign policies, as well as Beijing’s increased aggressiveness towards America and its regional allies Japan and the Philippines, this omission leaves the United States at a distinct disadvantage.

Critics have maintained that even within the confines of the New START treaty itself, the United States has been placed at a disadvantage. Specific problem areas cited include tie-ins to missile defense capabilities, inadequate verification procedures, and Russia’s huge ten-to- one advantage in tactical nuclear weapons.

What Putin Learned

 The lesson Putin discerned from his success in gaining the upper hand in New START was that the Obama presidency was less than diligently concerned about defense-related matters. Another incident during the New START talks, in which Washington provided Moscow with British nuclear secrets, also convinced Putin that Obama would not be as protective of American allies as his predecessors.

These lessons guided Putin’s subsequent actions. Both the Russian president and his foreign minister, Segey Lavrov, came to the conclusion that the United States under Barack Obama was not a force to be concerned with under most circumstances.

“Indeed, President Obama, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize at the opening of his first term, said he was elected to ‘end wars, not to start them’…it is inconceivable Russia would have played its Ukraine hand in the same risky and confrontational way had its assessment of President Obama been different.”

“Give Peace a Chance”

Mr. Obama’s “Give Peace a Chance” policy was far more than mere words.

He withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq, and announced a withdrawal time table for Afghanistan. He did not respond with either military or even significant diplomatic options to China’s confiscation of Philippine offshore resources. He has won his attempts to slash defense spending, and he continues to advocate for unilateral nuclear reductions.

Significantly, as Moscow and Beijing engaged in massive upgrades in the size, quality, and technological sophistication of their armed forces, Washington’s response during the current administration has been to slash the U.S. military budget, dramatically altering the international balance of power.

The cuts could not have come at a more inappropriate moment. In response to the fall of the Soviet Union, American forces had been allowed to dwindle into a shadow of their former strength, with a Navy diminished from 600 ships to 284, an Army reduced from 17 divisions to 10, and an Air Force cut from 37 combat commands to 20. Much of the equipment remaining, particularly that of the Army, has been worn out from extensive use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same can be said for personnel. Of particular note has been the overuse of National Guard forces.

The U.S. industrial infrastructure, which allowed the nation to serve as “The Arsenal of Democracy” since before the Second World War began, has also been diminished.  A prime example is the fact that America has only one plant left capable of building tanks, and the Obama Administration has repeatedly attempted to shut it down.

American military strength, despite having been mobilized and funded to fight the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, remained, in terms of major geopolitical threats, in the warm afterglow of a peace dividend bought about by the USSR’s demise, even after Moscow began returning to cold war status and Beijing became a superpower.

The result has been a growing and now dangerous imbalance in military strength between the developing affiliation of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea-a massive and contiguous axis covering a vast portion of both the landmass and population of the planet-and the increasingly underfunded militaries of both the United States and its allies.

As Russian forces invaded the Crimea, a Stratfor Global Intelligence report noted: “Fractured and burdened by its ongoing financial crisis and lacking unity on military issues, the European Union could find it difficult to counter Russian moves – whether they appear as financial incentives to the struggling states of central and eastern Europe or threats of armed conflict along the periphery. Looking into the future, the Ukraine crisis ultimately could test many of the core assumptions binding the EU – and the NATO alliance – together.”

The Report Continues Next Week