America and Russia: Has the Cold War Really Ended?

America and Russia: Has the Cold War Really Ended?
US nuclear doctrine, missile defence in Europe and NATO expansion


by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The Caucus (University of Ottawa), Vol. 10, No. 1 (Fall 2009): pp. 20-22. - 2009-11-12


The following article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya was first published in The Caucus, a political science and international development journal published by the University of Ottawa. The article focuses on the November 9, 2009 twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall to raise the question: Has the Cold War really ended? It deals with Russian anxieties with the U.S., American nuclear doctrine, American missile defence in Europe, and NATO expansion.

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The twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is approaching, but has the Cold War really ended and is the Cold War really a historic relic of the not too distant past? The Soviet Union may no longer exist and the Warsaw Pact may have long been dissolved, but many of the remnants of the Cold War still exist, like the conflict in the divided Korean Peninsula, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and finally the issue of missile defense. In the last few years the relations between NATO and the Russian Federation have become tense and described in terms reminiscent of the Cold War. One of the main impetuses for this resumption of Cold tensions has been the U.S. missile shield project in the European continent. The Russians have consistently made no secret about maintaining that the missile defense shield, above all else, is a threat to them.

The idea of a missile shield project in not new. During the Cold War, the idea was inaugurated by Ronald Reagan as part of a grand strategy to deploy missiles, technical facilities, and military bases around the world and in space, which led to the project being called “Star Wars.â€