Putin Seeking to Awaken the Sleeping Russian Bear

The news that an arms race may be underway once more between Washington and Moscow has brought back some unpleasant memories, but it is also a pointer to a more complicated future.
The Kremlin's threat to counter US missile defence installations in eastern Europe is a sign that Russia will no longer acquiesce in a Pax Americana.

What seemed in the west like a post cold-war honeymoon in the nineties is remembered more as a rape by Moscow's new leaders. In their eyes Russia was taken advantage of at a moment of economic weakness by Washington, London and a band of unscrupulous Russian oligarchs. A new Russian foreign policy, published by the government in recent days makes it clear that Moscow believes the era of American hegemony is now over.

"The myth about the unipolar world fell apart once and for all in Iraq," the review says. "A strong, more self-confident Russia has become an integral part of positive changes in the world."
The policy document is an elaboration of an anti-American polemic delivered two months ago by Vladimir Putin to a roomful of shocked western diplomats in Munich. "The Munich speech may be an event ... we look back to and say: that's when everything changed, but we should have seen it coming," said Cliff Kupchan, a former US state department official now at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Around the world, Putin's Russia has been serving notice for some time it is prepared to challenge US leadership of the international community. It is beginning to push back hard against missile defence and Nato's eastward expansion. It has resisted tough sanctions against Iran, and so far refused to go along with a UN-brokered plan to hand Kosovo autonomy. Moscow is also signalling it wants to be treated as a serious player in the Middle East, meeting Hamas officials at a time they are being ostracised by the US and western Europe.