US policy towards Russia is destructive for Europe, Patrick Smith says

"The Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia, reluctantly supported by the Europeans, bite more deeply every day. But it is also clearer with each daily news report that Russians are not going to suffer alone," Patrick Smith writes in an article published by the Fiscal Times.

"Russia’s immediate neighbors and the Europeans will, too. And—not to be missed—so will the trans-Atlantic alliance that has served as the backbone of Western policy since the postwar order was established 70 years ago next spring," the article reads.

"It’ll be the other kind if the European Union swoons into another recession as a consequence of America’s geopolitical ambitions to Europe’s east. Emphatically it’ll be the other kind if Obama hastens a drift in Washington’s ties to the European capitals that have been faintly discernible, if papered over, for decades," Smith believes.

"In short, two serious fissures are emerging as the hard line against Russia advances. One, the E.U. is plainly getting fractious. Reflecting the rainbow of political tendencies among their leaders, Europeans may have reached their limit in acquiescing in the Obama administration’s tough-and-getting-tougher policies. Note, in this context: Europe has nothing like the fiscal and monetary wherewithal it had six years ago to withstand another bout of financial and economic contagion," he writes.