Growing U.S.-Russia Tensions: “This is a Conflict”

In an interview with CNN, Kennan Institute Director Matthew Rojansky said the current tensions developing between the United States and Russia could signal a confrontation that would take the cold out of the Cold War.

“There is a conflict, there should be no doubt,” said Rojansky.

The U.S. announced last week that they had uncovered direct ties between the hacking of the Democratic National Committee servers and the Putin administration. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the U.S. was prepared to retaliate.

“We obviously will ensure that a U.S. response is proportional,” Earnest said. “It is unlikely that our response will be announced in advance.”

Donald Trump has repeatedly cast doubts on Russian involvement in the hacks; the Clinton campaign, happy to distract from the content of the recent hacks, has called Trump a pawn of Vladimir Putin.

Even if Trump is wrong and the Russians are behind the recent WikiLeaks revelations, it’s ridiculous to suggest that somehow it invalidates the information itself. Especially since Hillary Clinton and John Podesta have essentially admitted that the information is accurate. After all, you can’t simultaneously blame Russia for hacking your computers and insist to the public that the content is fictional.

Besides…you want to talk about Russian pawns?

Under whose administration have tensions with Moscow grown so strained? President Obama has been in the White House for eight years; if Russia has grown once again to become a dangerous enemy to the U.S. and our Western allies, what was Obama doing to allow this? Oh, right, he considered Russia a “regional power” unworthy of serious consideration. Just like he thought ISIS was just the “JV team” of al Qaeda. With Obama, there’s nothing to worry about…until there is.

And if you look at the situation in Syria, we definitely have something to worry about now. Nuclear disarmament negotiations between the U.S. and Russia have broken down, Putin is moving anti-missile defense systems into place, and the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo seems destined to continue indefinitely.

On Monday, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev called on both countries to cool it.

“I think the world has reached a dangerous point,” Gorbachev said. “This needs to stop. We need to renew dialogue.”