NATO has spent over a year sending more and more ground troops into Eastern Europe, citing “Russian aggression” as their justification. Before, they’d point to the East Ukraine Civil War, even though that war has been in a state of ceasefire since February.
Now, even though it’s nowhere near Eastern Europe and once again nothing to do with NATO, they are talking up another round of escalations along the Russian frontier, now citing Russia’s airstrikes against ISIS in Syria as proof of their “aggression.”
Britain is the first country to line up for more deployments, announcing a “company-sized” number of ground troops who will be spread around the Baltic states and Poland for “long-term” deployments explicitly targeting Russia. Former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind presented the deployments as important to commit Britain to a war with Russia if they invade Estonia.
Russia called the announcement “regrettable,” saying NATO is using these claims of a threat as camouflage to escalate in the east, and said they would meet the deployments with “parity” to ensure that NATO wasn’t building up a force without a counter.
Great! Afghanistan and an arms race brought down the Soviet Union. Putin has now saddled himself with both. Let's see how long he lasts.