The head of the NATO military alliance said on Wednesday that it wasn’t looking to start another Cold War with Russia.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Germany’s DPA news agency: “We need to address the fact that we see a more assertive Russia to the east. At the same time, NATO’s message is that we don’t want a new Cold War. We don’t want a new arms race and we want political dialogue with Russia.”
He further stated that he is anticipating more dialogue with Moscow this year.
The alliance overall supports improvements to “political dialogue” and “military lines of communication.”
“We are moving forward both on the political dialogue and the military lines of communication, and the whole alliance is behind that,” he added. [source]
(Analyst comment: This is more than just commentary for public consumption; no doubt NATO doesn’t want another expensive, protracted Cold War with an old adversary, especially as European nations are dealing with rising domestic unrest due to their liberal immigration policies that are flooding their countries with Muslim migrants at odds with Western culture, and terrorism. President Trump had to goad NATO members into spending the required 2 percent of GDP on their militaries, to bolster the alliance’s capabilities; they last thing European nations want to do is bolster defense spending even more, for any reason.
That, and of course, Europeans are very war-averse, having seen their continent destroyed twice in the 20th century. Russia is likely to test the limits of European passivity someday.)
