The Russia-NATO confrontation is becoming one of the defining aspects of the global strategic landscape. And according to the head of Goldman Sachs's Office of Global Security, the situation is going to remain tense — or even intensify.
Robert Dannenberg, who is also a 24-year CIA veteran, believes that Russia is the top strategic threat from a US perspective.
"We are in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now because both Russia and NATO are starting to exercise substantial military activity in close proximity to each other in Eastern Europe and the Baltics," Dannenberg said in an interview included in a July 9 Goldman Sachs analyst note.
Dannenberg believes that there's a high risk of an unintended escalation, and notes that "many of the channels of rapid military and intelligence communications that were carefully constructed during the Cold War have been dismantled, lamentably, mostly from the US side."
The conflict between the US and Russia stems largely from Russian policies in Ukraine.
A February ceasefire has succeeded in freezing the separatist and Ukrainian frontlines, but it hasn't completely halted the violence. Firefights across the front lines are common; one Ukrainian soldier was killed in a shootout on July 9.
Analysts believe that Russian-backed militants may be mobilizing for an attempt to take the Ukrainian coastal city of Mariupol, thus providing a connection between mainland Russia and the occupied Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in March 2014.
The opposition between Russia and NATO hasn't cooled either, with Russia carrying out provocative overflights and naval deployments around NATO territory and sending additional military assets to the Kaliningrad enclave, which borders the NATO states of Poland and Lithuania.
Credit to Businessinsider.com
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-analyst-and-ex-cia-agent-we-are-in-an-extraordinarily-dangerous-time-right-now-2015-7#ixzz3fmajr0eA
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