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Article by WorldNews.com Correspondent Dallas Darling.

When the U.S.-led NATO alliance called on Russia to revoke a newly-signed treaty for a military base in Abkhazia, it was reminiscent of how it reacted to Warsaw Pact nations and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, not to mention missed opportunities for peace. The Eastern European Mutual Assistance Pact, or Warsaw, was primarily an eastern European economic coalition formed to counter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-a U.S.-led military bloc consisting of western European nations for the purpose of opposing Russia and communism.(1) Since Russia’s leader, Joseph Stalin, was fearful of a fourth attack by another western power, it also served as a buffer.

Throughout the history of the Cold War, which eventually led to the supremacy of the United States and its NATO allies, the Warsaw Pact often found itself reacting from a tactically defensive position. In 1953, when Britain and the U.S. toppled Iran’s newly elected government, and in 1956, when France and Britain militarily intervened in the Suez Crisis, Russia later crushed a Hungarian uprising.(2) In 1960, the U.S. assured the Soviet Union that West Germany, a NATO member, would never develop nuclear weapons.(3) Unfortunately, this was not the case. Warsaw Pact nations, which were economically thriving, now felt compelled to produce nuclear weapons too.(4) Much like NATO and the U.S., its resources and brains were diverted towards a massive arms race.

In many ways, Russia’s suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 was a reply to four years of America’s invasion and occupation of South Vietnam. Yet even by 1969, the Warsaw Pact was showing signs of strain. This was no more evident than when Romania’s Nicolae Ceasusescu, along with other nations, publicly refused to send aid to North Vietnam at Russia’s request.(5) When the Afghan government invited the Soviet Union to help fight the Mujaheddin rebels, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wrongly viewed Russia’s action as a two-prong strategy to dominate the Strait of Malacca through Cambodia and the Persian Gulf through Afghanistan.(6)

While Afghanistan marked the end of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, the U.S.-led NATO alliance missed a series of opportunities to lessen tensions with Russia starting in 1953. It was then, that Britain’s Winston Churchill proposed a U.S.-Russia meeting, but U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower rejected this idea.(7) During the Nixonian Era, Russia was repeatedly warned that, “Detente does not mean the end of danger, and it was not the same as lasting peace.”(8) In 1983 and at a Warsaw Pact meeting, General Secretary Yuri Andropov proposed nuclear-free zones in Europe and the Mediterranean, cuts in naval and military deployments, and a nuclear-test ban. He also challenged the U.S. and NATO to mutually agree to stop arms sales to developing nations and emphasize economic aid.(9)

President Ronald Reagan responded by calling the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire” and by announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)(10). SDI was a scheme to militarize outer space and to cause a greater imbalance of technology and military power between NATO and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. The Reagan Doctrine was relentless in its threats to maintain military superiority. Even when General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev said he would not view the U.S. through a Cold War prism, and then asked for the mutual elimination of all nuclear missiles, the U.S continued to push for a massive military build-up through its NATO allies. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko exclaimed, “New missiles, bombers and aircraft carriers are being churned out in some kind of pathological obsession, and new means of mass destruction are being experimented with.”(11)

In 1990, the pan-European summit in Paris formerly ended the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact disappeared.(12) In the midst of a power vacuum, U.S.-led NATO forces were left with land, air, and sea supremacy. While Warsaw Pact cuts alone were the equivalent of sixty heavy tank divisions and forty-five air combat wings, NATO pursued Operation Cascade. This operation started a massive military build-up of Eastern European nations with tanks, jets, and armaments. U.S.-NATO logic reasoned it was cheaper to give arms and weapons away than to destroy them.(13) Since then, the U.S.-NATO alliance has transformed itself into the U.S.-NATO Empire, even dominating the fringes of Russia. It has practically made United Nations peace keeping forces irrelevant too.

In 2008, when Russia sought entry into the U.S.-NATO Pact, was the war in Georgia against its former province of South Ossetia and Abhkhazia-formerly parts of the Soviet Republic-an effort to sabotage such a bid? The new pact between Moscow and Abkhazia, which the U.S. and NATO has labeled “invalid” and “illegal,” will allow the stationing of 3,000 Russian troops. It will also give Russia greater access to the Black Sea, specifically since it plans to build a naval base in Ochamchire on Abkhazia’s northern coast. Russia says its troops and naval ships will defend the sovereignty and safety of the Abkhazia Republic, which seceded from Georgia. Not only does Russia’s new military strategy place it in a better position for crucial energy routes, but it appears to be a response to the U.S.-Polish-Romania missile defense shield. The recent pro-Ukrainian government must be of some concern for the U.S.-NATO Empire too.

It is obvious that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a new start, at least for Russia. It has discarded Cold War ideologies and has recognized that militarism and empire building overstretches a nation’s resources. It is wrestling with the principle that freedom of choice is a universal principal too.(14) In contrast, the U.S.-NATO Empire is fighting conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other parts of the world. While the Politburo and Kremlin have been transformed, the White House, Congress, Pentagon, still views Russia through Stalinism. This why U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Europe’s demilitarization has become an impediment and is limiting NATO’s ability to fight wars effectively.

Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, “The lesson for us is that not only must our posture in NATO be flexible in its defensive postures; it must be flexible equally in its readiness to respond to the opportunities for detente.”(15) In 2008, Russia could have been included into a U.S-NATO alliance. Now, it might be too late, as Russia embarks on a new kind of Warsaw Pact, one that might live the ideals of May Day. Meanwhile, a new book has suggested that Vice-President Dick Cheney pushed for war with Russia when it came to the aid of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With a presidential election looming on the horizon in the U.S., including a revival of neo-conservatism and Republicanism, and with the exclusion of Russia, the U.S.-NATO Empire, which for years has sought to dominate Eurasia and Asia, might just get its wish, one that it will more than likely regret.

Dallas Darling – darling@wn.com

(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)

(1) Parish, Thomas. The Cold War Encyclopedia. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. p. 336.

(2) Evans, Graham and Jeffrey Newnahm. The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations. Toronto, Canada, 1998. p. 596.