Weekend Roundup: Global Rifts Harden Between the West, Russia and China

The military uprising in Turkey and the attack in France signal a world in turmoil. Events elsewhere this week also mark an ominous historic turn of events. From two ends of the globe, geopolitical rifts have hardened. NATO recently announced the deployment of a missile shield and four new battalions in the front line states bordering Russia, prompting former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to say the West is preparing for a "hot war." A U.N. tribunal on maritime disputes declared on Tuesday that China has no legal basis for claiming sovereignty over shoals in the South China Sea also claimed by the Philippines, prompting Beijing, which sees the U.S. maneuvering behind the scenes, to react in anger and defiance. "It will certainly intensify conflict and even confrontation," China's ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, warned. Both China and Russia decried America-allied South Korea's planned deployment of a new anti-missile defense system, also announced recently, as a strategic threat to their national security. We may not yet be in a new Cold War, but we have definitely entered a period of hot peace. Writing from Moscow, Fyodor Lukyanov is blunt: "The spirit of the Cold War is back -- full scale." From Vladivostok, Artyom Lukin sees America's policy of "dual containment" of China and Russia continuing to "push[ ] them together to form an anti-Western quasi-alliance and, possibly, even recreating some conditions that, a century ago, led to World War I." Writing from Bei...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news