The US and Europe have one thing in common, they both hate Russia. At the end of this video, they talk about this. One would think this couldn't be the reason. That it's more about power and money, but hate might actually be the driving force behind all of this.
"This strategy would, in any event, mark an improvement over the current U.S. approach, which seems to operate on the premise that the United States can continue running its foreign policy in ways that are fundamentally out of alignment with its military resources—or that America will be able to someday return to Cold War-era defense spending levels. It would work with the momentum and logic of current U.S. Russia policy and need not come at the expense of America’s emphasis on democracy and human rights in relations with that country. In fact, the focus on the development of “carrots” in the east could be made conditional on specific forms of Russian behavior in a number of fields, as circumstances warrant. But nor does the strategy’s success hinge on the assumption of regime change; to a greater extent than current policy, it would harness punitive measures like sanctions to a coherent goal (reorienting Russia eastward) that, critically, includes a positive component (the development of Russia’s neglected east). It also has the merit of working with, rather than against, the interests and desires of U.S. allies in Asia without coming at the expense of the interests of European allies or the independence and security of Europe’s frontline states.
A virtue of the proposed strategy is that it is active rather than passive. It would take the United States out of the position of waiting idly for opportunities to emerge to “drive wedges” between Russia and China. Instead, it would involve an active political program that harnesses the various instruments of U.S. national power (diplomacy, financial, military, alliances) toward a tangible goal.
But perhaps the greatest selling point for the strategy is that it would make the most of America’s window of opportunity to sequence the Russian and Chinese threats. That window is closing quickly. The deepening dependency of Russia on China bodes ill for the United States in a future conflict. We should use the time available to bring U.S. power to bear in the most efficacious ways possible to avert a two-front war.
A. Wess Mitchell is a former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and is now a principal and co-founder at The Marathon Initiative, a think-tank dedicated to the study of great power competition. This essay draws upon elements of a report that he prepared for the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment in fall 2020.
The greatest risk facing the twenty-first-century United States, short of an outright nuclear attack, is a two-front war involving its strongest military rivals, China and Russia. Such a conflict would entail a scale of national effort and risk unseen in generations, effectively pitting America...
nationalinterest.org