In recent years, Moscow has seen NATO act aggressively to expand to the East, citing an alleged 'Russian threat' as justification for such actions. Meanwhile, Western experts argue that the alliance's active actions are linked to a fundamental change in the Baltic Sea regional security situation. "The result was an arms race in which (after an increasing decline in the US involvement in international politics) the NATO bloc should keep up with Russia," German Magazine Focus writes in the article "NATO-Russia arms race: Western experts warn of risk of nuclear war".
Vestnik Kavkaza presents a translation of the article, demonstrating the confrontational approach of the German "hawks" towards Russia.
The Bundeswehr is building a new naval command center in Rostock
The Bundeswehr has already started responding to a new military imbalance. For example, the navy is establishing a control center in Rostock that can serve as NATO regional headquarters in the Baltic region. "No other Baltic Sea neighbors have comparable capabilities, therefore, we take responsibility of the leadership," the security expert from the University of Kiel Sebastian Bruns told Tagesspiegel.
Military experts warn that Russia's rearmament should not be underestimated. "All previous attempts by NATO countries, such as increasing the activity of exercises and the presence of troops in the Baltic States still look harmless in comparison with Russia's modernization," Albert Stahel, a professor of strategic studies at Zurich University's Institute for Political Science, said.
According to Stahel, NATO has only two options for responding to the Russian expansion policy appropriately. The bloc should "substantially increase the contingent of conventional forces in the Baltic countries," the military expert says. "If this is not possible, NATO needs to create another threat to Russia. It means that the North Atlantic alliance must make it clear to Putin that an attack against the sovereignty of Baltic countries can provoke a nuclear war. "
This option would have a devastating impact on the middle of a densely populated Europe, so it is highly unlikely. Nevertheless, the threat potential of nuclear weapons is enormous, as the current nuclear dispute between North Korea and the United States shows.
US withdrawal from security policy puts NATO under even greater pressure
There is a need in a quick reaction to Russia's policy in the Baltic sea not least because the US is increasingly reducing its participation in the international security policy under President Donald Trump, Stahel stresses. The battle for strategic superiority in the Baltic region has continued since the region fell under the military dominance of the Teutonic Order 800 years ago. "Today, Putin continues Peter the Great's efforts for the Russian Empire. And the Russian president will not stop himself," the expert assures.
Meanwhile, commenting on NATO's active actions, the Russian Foreign Ministry says that the words of its Western counterparts often diverge from their actions and from reality, and absolutely ignore historical facts and agreements.. According to the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova, in December of last year, the National Security Archive (a non-governmental organisation under the George Washington University, US) published documents pertaining to the negotiations on German reunification in 1990. They unambiguously show the commitment of the West not to advance NATO to the East. Copies of public speeches, the Gorbachev Foundation papers and telegrams, letters and transcripts of talks declassified by the State Department and the foreign ministries of other states speak directly or indirectly about commitments of the Western leaders not to expand the Alliance towards the Soviet borders.
"For example, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, speaking in Tutzing on January 31, 1990, said that "changes in Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany must not infringe upon the security interests of the USSR". Mikhail Gorbachev received reassurances that NATO posed no threat to the USSR from British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd (April 11), French President Francois Mitterrand during his visit to Moscow (May 25), and US President George Bush in a telephone conversation (May 31). These are just some of the talks that were held. During his meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker famously said that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward". This is one of the many examples of a flurry of assurances by Western leaders that the Alliance would remain within its borders after the reunification of Germany that were constantly made at the very beginning of the 1990s," Zakharova said. "All these numerous documented facts of pre-existing agreements demolish the attempts of our Western partners today to deny the obvious. The materials published by the Alliance demonstrate a gross violation by the Alliance of what was essentially 'a gentlemen’s agreement' with the USSR on respecting its security interests and NATO’s commitment not to expand to the East".
