{"id":17598,"date":"2018-08-27T12:15:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T12:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/08\/27\/russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:40:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:40:35","slug":"russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/europe\/2018\/08\/27\/russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia, the victim? Opposite NATO\u2019s eastern flank, it\u2019s an expansionist West causing anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MOSCOW \u2014 The past two years have kept NATO busy. Adding to the challenge presented by Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump has spent much energy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/smr\/nato-priorities\/2018\/07\/11\/trump-blasts-nato-allies-for-inaction-accuses-germany-of-being-under-russias-control\/\" target=\"_blank\">criticizing the trans-Atlantic military alliance<\/a> and calling on members to spend more on defense, all the while trivializing the situation with Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But despite Western hand-wringing sparked by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/smr\/nato-priorities\/2018\/07\/09\/trump-rips-nato-ahead-of-summit\/\" target=_blank>Trump\u2019s rhetoric<\/a>, Russia is not entirely pleased with the state of affairs of the past two years. Accustomed to being the unpredictable element in bilateral relations with Washington, Moscow has yet to square Trump\u2019s pro-Russian rhetoric with his administration\u2019s adversarial footing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/congress\/2018\/08\/14\/trump-signals-he-may-ignore-russia-provisions-in-defense-bill-he-just-signed\/\" target=_blank>shift in dynamics<\/a> has caused increased anxiety among policymakers and analysts in Moscow. The hope once felt in Russia for a detente under Trump is fading, and prolonged confrontation is assumed. State media channels, themselves in wartime footing since 2014, routinely warn Russian citizens of war with an intransigent, expansionist West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adding to those anxieties are NATO\u2019s ongoing efforts to modernize and expand military capabilities in central and eastern Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe don\u2019t like the picture we are seeing,\u201d said Vladimir Frolov, an independent political analyst in Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNATO is getting serious about its combat capabilities and readiness levels. Trump may trash NATO and his European allies,\u201d Frolov added, \u201cbut it is the capabilities that matter, and those have been growing under Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NATO has long been Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s favorite foreign boogeyman and, as far as political footballs go, this one has been easy and fruitful to kick around at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of Putin\u2019s legitimacy in recent years has been rooted in a well-designed domestic narrative of Fortress Russia under siege from foreign powers \u2014 with NATO being the focus of concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the perspective of Russian military planners, tasked with devising a national defense for the world\u2019s largest land power, NATO is more than a useful rhetorical scarecrow at home \u2014 though this helps secure funding for modernization and new hardware. NATO is one of Russia\u2019s primary potential opponents, and therefore a focus of Russian military thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And from that perspective, the situation looks concerning: NATO troops and hardware are being forward deployed to former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe; in June, the alliance unveiled a new initiative \u2014 dubbed the \u201cFour 30s\u201d \u2014 that will see a significant expansion of NATO\u2019s rapid deployment capabilities; and Germany is considering rearming with an eye on Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEven the shouting match over the 2 percent spending, not to mention Trump\u2019s lunatic call for 4.5 percent, is a significant concern for Moscow,\u201d Frolov said. \u201cWere Germany to start remilitarizing, approaching the capabilities level of the Cold War, we should be worried. And we would hate to see Poland emerge as the new Germany for U.S. forward basing and positioning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NATO has its own reasons for pursuing all of these initiatives: Russia. Many of the alliance\u2019s members, particularly the newer ones on Russia\u2019s borders in eastern Europe, were rattled by Moscow\u2019s brazen annexation of Crimea and have spent the past four years calling for greater collective action to deter possible Russian moves on former Soviet states now in NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russia, in turn and for a variety of reasons \u2014 political expediency and military prudence \u2014 has seized on NATO\u2019s efforts to bolster its own defense and spun that into rationale for sustained military expenditures amid economic recession. Actors on all sides \u2014 Trump, NATO and the Kremlin \u2014 hold irreconcilable positions that sometimes feed into misunderstanding, mistrust and military bolstering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Kremlin has made confrontation with the West a cornerstone of its domestic legitimacy. Western politicians and pundits have honed in on Moscow with an intensity that makes their Russian counterparts nervous. And Trump cannot realistically deal with Russia in any way the Kremlin would like to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under such conditions, the buildup is almost certain to continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia is not entirely pleased with the state of affairs of the past two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":35641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":46,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,160,46,11,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3380],"class_list":["post-17598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-daily-news-roundup","category-europe","category-global","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"FMIHQKS4YZE5FL4Y5DVZQYR5GM","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2018\/08\/27\/russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Russia, the victim? Opposite NATO\u2019s eastern flank, it\u2019s an expansionist West causing anxiety - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Russia is not entirely pleased with the state of affairs of the past two years.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia, the victim? Opposite NATO\u2019s eastern flank, it\u2019s an expansionist West causing anxiety\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Russia is not entirely pleased with the state of affairs of the past two years.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/europe\/2018\/08\/27\/russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-27T12:15:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T21:40:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matthew Bodner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matthew Bodner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\n\t    \"@context\": \"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\n\t    \"@graph\": [\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"Article\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/defensenews\\\/global\\\/europe\\\/2018\\\/08\\\/27\\\/russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety\\\/#article\",\n\t            \"isPartOf\": {\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/defensenews\\\/global\\\/europe\\\/2018\\\/08\\\/27\\\/russia-the-victim-opposite-natos-eastern-flank-its-an-expansionist-west-causing-anxiety\\\/\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"author\": {\n\t                \"name\": \"migration\",\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/defensenews\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/cc76c831bb37a926738c8391fca7a3b1\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"headline\": \"Russia, the victim? 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