This will not by any means be a comprehensive treatment. Time is a big factor right now, and it’s more important to enlarge the landscape image of what’s going on by presenting recent developments together.
In the latest TOC Ready Room, we looked at Russia’s announcement about being “forced” to deploy intermediate-range missiles to Europe, which would be an overt violation of the terms of the now-defunct 1987 INF Treaty.
That in itself is a major move; “tectonic,” we might say, using the adjective deployed by Dmitry Medvedev in 2011 about the Arab Spring.
As discussed on 15 December, I assess Russia’s move to be as much about a shifting orientation vis-à-vis China as about Russia’s relations with NATO Europe. But it’s definitely about NATO Europe (and North America) as well. Continue reading “December 2021: Russia making major strategic moves”