The United States announced a plan in January to deploy 10 ballistic missile defense (BMD) batteries in Poland and a tracking radar station in the Czech Republic supposedly to guard Europe against possible missile attacks by Iran.
The planned deployment of US missile defense systems at Russia's front door has become a new focus of US-Russia bickering in the past few months, because in Moscow's view, neither Iran nor the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has the kind of missiles US defense systems are designed to shoot down. The target of US missiles can only be Russia.
US-Russia bickering on this issue has been heating up. The "homely meeting" US President George W. Bush accorded his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at his father's private ranch in Maine in early July did little to narrow the difference between the two military superpowers.
No matter what alternative plan Russia managed to put forward, such as a joint missile defense system using Russia's early warning radar in Azerbaijan in central Asia, the US was not interested.
Lieutenant General Henry "Trey" Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, even told Russian reporters the US BMD batteries and radar system to be deployed in Eastern Europe will be ready for active duty in 2013.
As the US has deployed missile interceptor systems at its Eielson and Fort Greely Air Force bases (AFB) in Alaska, and Vandenberg in California, it already has complete BMD systems for use elsewhere. And the US is now working with Japan to advance the development and deployment of BMD systems in the Far East.
To Russia, once the US has finished deploying its BMD systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, the strategic encirclement of Russia from both the east and west by the US-led Western military alliance will be a resounding success.
Even though it is no longer the Soviet Union, Russia is still a strategic nuclear superpower next to the US. It surely will not sit idle while the US tightens the noose around its neck.
Hot on the heels of the US scheme for missile defense deployment in Eastern Europe, Russia announced a new military upgrade plan worth dozens of billions of rubles, with particular attention to the three sure-kill weapon systems in its strategic nuclear capabilities specifically designed to deal with the missile shields of the US.
The trio features Tu-160 strategic bombers of the Air Force, the strategic missile forces' land-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles and Project 941 (Typhoon) strategic nuclear submarines of the Navy.
Last Friday, Putin announced that Russia had permanently resumed long-distance patrol flights of strategic bombers, which were suspended in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Air patrol areas will include zones of commercial shipping and economic activity. As of today, combat patrolling will be on a permanent basis. It has a strategic character," Putin said.
Russia is also developing its own fifth-generation missile defense system, while working to expand its existing missile defense network beyond its borders into Byelorussia, Armenia and Kazakhstan.
At the same time, Moscow is speeding up the development of new intercontinental ballistic missiles and realigning its strategic warheads in addition to announcing it had temporarily suspended the implementation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty on July 14.
It may not be too difficult to predict the outcome of this US-Russia arm-wrestling, which will see both sides continue with what each has been doing. But no matter what the outcome is, this struggle has already shown observers of the US global strategy that the war on terror in the post-9/11 agenda of the Bush administration is probably not the top focus any more.
At least the preparedness for dealing with challenges from other major powers seems to be given the same strategic significance as to the war on terror.
Why so, some people might ask? Viewed from the international perspective, the rise of non-Western powers is becoming a main trend in global politics and Russia happens to be one of those powers with a superpower's capability to rival the US as far as its strategic nuclear arms stockpile is concerned.
And Russia's national strength today is not what it used to be. Its economy has been undeniably recovering after it hit rock bottom as a result of the "shock therapy" following the end of the Cold War. The country has been profiting from high oil prices on the world market in recent years. The influx of oil and natural gas dollars has pumped up the country's confidence.
By the end of last year, Russia's economy was close to what it was in 1991. Economic strength remains the power source keeping its military machine running and providing much-needed support for Moscow's counter measures against US pressure over the missile defense issue.
In foreign policy and national security, though Russia still needs help from Europe and the US on certain issues, such as joining the World Trade Organization, Moscow no longer feels it has to behave in deference to US-European mood.
Fed up with the US "stretching the limit of their forbearance" in almost all areas, the Russians are now ready to say whatever they want, like what Putin did at the European security summit held in Munich earlier this year.
For the US, it has been more than a decade since the end of the Cold War, but the digestion of the fruits has not been all that smooth. After the expansion of the European Union and two rounds of eastward expansion by NATO, many former Warsaw Pact members, including Poland, have joined the Western Bloc, but the transformation of Russia has not proceeded the way the West wanted.
The rise of Putin's personal esteem and Russia's "manageable democracy" has the US screaming autocracy. Its luring of the Commonwealth of Independent States members with energy resources or other bait has also become a target of US and European criticism that labels it part of the attempt to rebuild Russia's traditional empirical power.
The revival of a Russia set on "moving away from democracy" as its economy continues to recover and its military might remains formidable means something in world politics that the West knows only too well.
In recent years "the unimaginable major power challenge or war" has become a catchy phrase among many US politicians and scholars, but the country's military thrusts causing major power rivalries remains a reality. It has been in plain sight alongside the war on terror following 9/11.
To the conservatives of the US, terrorism can never bring America down and the real threat will always come from major power challenges.
This is why NATO is still hell-bent on growing larger after two rounds of eastward expansion and the US is working hard on energizing the old military alliance in addition to developing "an alliance of the willing", with an obsession in forging military relations with non-allies.
Counter-terrorism has taken absolutely nothing from America's grand design of having the whole world in its pocket.
We are watching the rekindling of the Cold War mentality in Washington's efforts to find allies and partners while beefing up its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, Eastern Europe and South Asia apart from occupying Iraq indefinitely.
Bush has already become a lame-duck president as he struggles under a mountain of domestic and foreign problems while counting his remaining days in the White House. Though he repeatedly vowed to veto any congressional bill on a timetable for the pullout of US troops from Iraq, the House passed one on July 2 demanding the bulk of US forces leave Iraq by April 1, 2008.
Apparently, Americans are already thinking about what to do in the post-Bush era.
One thing demanding our attention is what will dominate post-Bush global politics. It is obvious that people all over the world are hoping for cooperation among major powers to deal with so many challenges facing humanity.
But, what if it turns out to be unsettling rivalries such as the ongoing row over missile defense in Europe? It would not make for a peaceful world that is for sure.
The author is assistant president of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations
(China Daily August 21, 2007)
