Cold War between Russia and US?

Read this carefully. Don't confuse Russia with the USSR. Prior to the break-up of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) in 1987, Russia was only one of about 16 republics within the USSR. Everyone spoke in terms of us being in a "cold" war with the USSR, not any individual republic within the USSR.

(wikipedia:) Initially established as a union of four Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR grew to contain 15 constituent or "union republics" by 1956: Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Byelorussian SSR, Estonian SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR, Kirghiz SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Moldavian SSR, Russian SFSR, Tajik SSR, Turkmen SSR, Ukrainian SSR, and Uzbek SSR. (From annexation of the Estonian SSR on August 6, 1940 up to the reorganisation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR into the Karelian ASSR on July 16, 1956, the count of "union republics" was 16.)

Since 1987, Russian has been an independent nation, and at least in the beginning, we were not in a cold war with Russia. It is becoming debatable whether or not we are entering into a "cold war" era with Russia, alone, now.

Vladmir Putin became acting President on December 31, 1999, succeeding Boris Yeltsin, and then won the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, he was re-elected for a second term, which expires on May 7, 2008. He has steered a course towards crushing dissent and creating a much more highly authoritarian government in Russia. Many in the Western press have dubbed him the new "Tsar". I can't debate that point at length here.

First, what is a "cold" war? It's not a "hot" war, i.e. open warring, fighting, armies, killing. A cold war is fighting without the hot, vying for power, trying to expand oneself and diminish the other, using specific policies and actions to carry out a foreign policy based on this.

The basic premise is that I'm going to threaten you and scare you and oppose you (without going into all-out war) so that you have to waste your time and energy and effort to protect yourself against me and what I could possibly do to you. We have fought many wars. Just go to wikipedia and word search "US military history".

But many people call these "proxy wars" or "war by proxy". For many years, some say, we fought these wars of proxy, because the US and the Soviet Union (Russia was the larget republic in the USSR and home of the capital,) could not fight DIRECTLY BECAUSE THEY BOTH HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAPABLE OF MUTUAL DESTURCTION. So they fought a "cold" war.

I was a ULCA political science major with a specialization in Russia, so I'm farely familiar with this cold war. The space race was part of the cold war. Developing more and more dangerous weapons, fighting in the international bodies, conflicting trade agreements, verbal-broadcast propaganda, all these created a sense of fear among the people, and it was a game to try to get the advantage - politically, economically, and territorially.

Politics, political alliances - internal and external, economics, trade, culture, the Olympics, foreign-student programs, participation and voting in international bodies: United Nations, G7, G12, NATO, SEATO, World Bank, collaboration in research, cooperation in global warming, protecting endangered species, immigration and emigration policies, ... all these areas are the domain of the cold war.

Russia is methodically and systematically rebuilding their "empire". And the US, we are systematically employing our foreign policy, which is designed, some say, to sell more Coca-cola in China and secure our international sources for oil.

Russia: What is the largest country in the world, geographically? Russia. What country has the world's largest military capability in nuclear weapons, next to the United States? Russia. What city in the world has the largest number of billionaires? Moscow, capital of Russia.

Vladimir Putin is in close contact with Iran probably because Iran is our "enemy" and he know that he can gain” leverage" and a "bargaining position" relative to the U.S. How does that happen? If he has relations with Iran, he can say to the U.S., I will cooperate with you (the U.S.) more with Iran if you do this for me. This is cold war.

More cold war: Putin objected in the UN and NATO against the US missile destroyer proposals for Europe, because he considers them a threat to Russia. But they don't over-fly Russia, but that’s cold war: the entire world is affected, and it's geo-politics. Russia, and every country, is more sensitive, the closer you get to them. that is why the US is so sensitive about Cuba, because it's 90 years off our coast.

Weapons trading is a big cold war issue. Russia may trade with Iran, North Korea, and the US, of course, won't. Russia's allies and enemies are not our allies and enemies. This is cold war. Russia will do what is perceived as being good for Russia, and the US will do what is perceived as being in our self-interest. And this point of view will inevitably bring us into conflicts of interest. This is cold war.

I'm not helping you, and you're not helping me. What's good for you may not be good for me and vice versa. What we are always telling other nations that tees them off so badly is to "respect human rights". They feel that's an issue of internal, national politics, but we feel it's an issue that goes beyond national borders: it's a true international, universal issue.

Vlad Putin is extremely sensitive about some things, but what he told US reporters when he dismissed them recently, was, "Stay out of our affairs!"

"usaforklift" gave you a fairly decent answer (although I don't agree with it all), but everyone missed a major point. We were not in a Cold War with Russia. We were in a cold war with the Soviet Union! There is a huge difference! That would be like saying the Soviet Union was in a Cold War with Puerto Rico instead of the U.S.

I had many briefings during visits to Berlin in the Cold War on addressing SOVIET officers and one of the things that was stressed was NEVER call them Russian -- because they may not be!

it was called the Cold War because no actual fighting took place, there was lots of weapons created from both sides, such as the Hydrogen Bomb and a shitload of other nuclear weapons. But no direct fighting occurred between the US and Russia.

During the presidency of John Kennedy the U.S and Russia almost had a nuclear conflict. We discovered that Russia had put nuclear weapons in Cuba and we demanded they be removed. This was such a tense time and they at first said no way, but thought long and hard then removed them. Very scary time in history and one not to be forgotten.

ooooo i just studied this in history so i can help lol

no there were no weapons used in the cold war - no one was actually killed there was just alot of tension building up between Russia and America.

In 1945 between the Yalta and Potsdam conferences Stalin was furious at the US because they had acquired an atom bomb without consulting him. This triggered off the arms race for weapons between the two countries

To find out more go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/...

Doubt it. Bush was using the missile shield for political reasons. His claim was that the missile shield in Poland would protect Europe from Iran. Using that reasoning...it could be located in England and serve the same purpose without pissing off the Russians. There will be a noticeable shift to RATIONAL defense strategies, that are not masking some other Neoconservative agenda, under the Obama administration.

As they said, no action only tension. John F. kennedy and Nikita kruzjef were at eachothers necks and had created a nuclear monster. They created Hydrogen bombs and the Berlin wall was set up and separated communist and capitalist sides of berlin. Many thought there would be no tommorrow

well....Rusia had missles pointed at us from Cuba...the war was mostly threats and building of bombs