The Cold War Comes Back

Dmitry Medvedev was in Germany yesterday telling a group of senior leaders at the Security Conference that the West should cooperate more with Russia in their fight for Syria or face a new Cold War.  The story is in today's Wall Street Journal, [http://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-medvedev-says-world-is-fighting-a-new-cold-war-1455358705].  It almost reminds me of a Russian Cold War slogan, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable."  Has everyone forgotten about the Crimea or the shooting war going on in the southern part of the Ukraine?  

Apparently, we are supposed to stop thinking about these little transgressions and learn to enjoy our fate, ala Dr. Strangeglove who learned to love the bomb.   Never mind that the Russians said they were there to get rid of ISIS, but bombed everyone else but in the first runs on their targets.  The Russians need those ports and want Assad to survive so they can keep them.  Between Syria and the Ukraine, they have quite a few of those Russian troops out doing God's work.  If we just ignore them, we can avoid having another Cold War with Russia.  Really?  In case everyone forgot, this is how the Cold War started to begin with, a snatch of land called Berlin.  It went downhill from there.  

I miss the Cold War.  Probably a lot of people in Europe do too.  The spying, the meddling in elections, the military exercises, and all those proxy wars going on at once.  Our intelligence services and militaries made money hand over fist trying to keep up with all the shenanigans.  It was a good time for everyone.  The Russians want us to see this as a bad time to be avoided.  To them, cooperation means leaving them alone to do whatever they want.  Common enemies don't make friends like that.