New Cold War Comes Into Focus: A Militarized Eastern Europe

Obama is in Warsaw today and tomorrow to indulge Polish hysteria over Russia's response to the Western-orchestrated coup in Ukraine. The takeaway from Peter Baker's story, "Obama, in Warsaw, Pledges Solidarity With Eastern Europe," is the following:

[Obama] later announced that he would ask Congress for $1 billion for a “European reassurance initiative” that would increase exercises, training and troop presence in Eastern Europe and send American navy ships more often to the Baltic and Black seas. The plan would deploy American experts to bolster capabilities and would help pre-position equipment among European allies for quicker military responses. It would also provide aid to Ukraine and two other former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova.

This is what the New Cold War is going to look like: a constellation of U.S.-armed military bases in Eastern European nations formerly belonging to the Warsaw Pact, coupled with stepped-up meddling in the former Soviet republics of Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. It is a prescription for instability:

Anxious about the threat from Moscow, Polish leaders have been pressing for a more robust deployment and even a permanent base despite a NATO-Russia agreement following the end of the Cold War in which the western alliance said it would refrain from deploying substantial forces in eastern territory. Polish officials have argued that Russia had effectively abrogated that agreement by annexing Crimea.

“For the first time since the Second World War, one European country has taken a province by force from another European country,” Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, said in a telephone interview before Mr. Obama’s arrival. “America, we hope, has ways of reassuring us that we haven’t even thought about. There are major bases in Britain, in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy. Why not here?” 

Joined by Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Obama had a day of meetings scheduled with Mr. Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He was to meet with the leaders of Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia, all of whom are traveling here to see the American president.

In addition to huddling with the nations formerly of the Warsaw Pact (as well as the Non-Aligned Movement -- Tito is doing a somersault in his tomb), Obama will meet tomorrow with the newly-elected president of the Kiev junta, billionaire chocolate oligarch Petro Poroshenko.

One thing that is clear from reading Baker's Warsaw dispatch -- the extent to which the U.S. confrontational attitude towards Moscow over Ukraine mirrors Poland's Russophobia. Again, this is not a policy that is conducive to stability.

But there is no question that Congress will pony up the $1 billion for Obama's "European reassurance initiative." The dollar amount if anything will grow larger. Once the Ryan Plan can be implemented, whether in 2015 or 2017, there will be plenty of loot for the military-industrial-tax-cut complex.