by Rory Walkinshaw

Created on: February 21, 2009   Last Updated: March 07, 2009

The United States and the West have a major problem on their hands, both diplomatically and militarily: the Russian Federation.Relations with this country are spiraling downward, and it seems that, given the direction Europe and the U.S. are headed, they are only going to get worse. In fact, given the recent events in Georgia and South Ossetia, it seems that the U.S. and Russia are on course for a collision.

The reason? NATO's expansion.Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has continued to gobble up one country after another, steadily increasing the manpower and equipment available to it in any armed conflict. Since the USSR's breakup, at least seven nations (Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) have joined the alliance. Ukraine is talking about joining and Georgia already has strong ties to Washington.The NATO alliance currently includes 26 member states.

Some of these member countries, such as Great Britain and Turkey, either maintain very large standing militaries or, like Germany and Greece, possess the potential to increase the size and power of their armed forces. This is a problem because Russia views NATO's expansion as a threat to their security, fearing that it will soon be surrounded by a coalition of states capable of ganging up on it in any future conflict.This is this bad news for the U.S. because the next major country that decides to join NATO, like Ukraine, might provoke Russia into deploying troops to prevent the growth of the alliance.

The fifth article of NATO's charter states: "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." Thus, the United States and Western Europe would be forced to counter-deploy soldiers on their allies' behalf.Since the U.S. does not seem intent on terminating the growth of NATO anytime soon, it needs to be aware of the likely reaction the Russians will have as time goes by and they become increasingly boxed in. We need to not only take a closer look at Russia's capabilities, but possibly be prepared to fight in the near future.

Given the current situation, the Russian Federation can be considered the primary conventional threat facing NATO in the European theatre. With Iraq and the failing economy occupying most people's minds these days, this storm on the international front is seemingly ignored. Politically and diplomatically, Russia and the United States are heading toward a new Cold War that is unlikely to thaw anytime soon. The USSR may have fallen, but the Russian Bear is starting to show its claws once again.

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