Cohen: NATO’s Actions on Russian Border May Stir Memories of Nazi Invasion

• Cohen: NATO’s Actions on Russian Border May Stir Memories of Nazi Invasion 
  by http://sputniknews.com/  
  NATO is moving closer to Russia’s borders throwing a monkey wrench in the possibility of the US-Russian détente; incredibly as it may seem, it is presented as Moscow’s “provocation” by Washington’s hawks, Professor Stephen F. Cohen noted.
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  The North Atlantic Alliance is beefing up its military presence in the Baltic states and in Poland — in close proximity to Russia’s western border, Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, noted in his recent interview on The John Batchelor Show.
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  In this context Moscow’s decision to send its planes to inspect a US warship, the USS Donald Cook, which was maneuvering not far from Russia’s military-naval base at Kaliningrad, is understandable, the professor noted, calling attention to the fact that the guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook “is not a fishing boat.”
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  “I watched NATO move ever closer to Russia’s borders on land, in the air and in the sea and it is all being presented in the United States as Russia’s provocation. One military guy even said: ‘Putin is moving his troops closer to NATO’… NATO is moving closer to Russia, Russia doesn’t move. It is where it is. It’s NATO that has been on the move ever since the 1990s,” Professor Cohen underscored.
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  Russia is reacting to NATO’s maneuvers and all this is presented as “Putin’s aggression” against Europe, the Baltic states, and NATO. It is worth mentioning that although the US guided-missile destroyer was sailing in international waters it was only 70 nautical miles from Russian territory. Commenting on the issue, British political analyst Finian Cunningham wrote in his article for Sputnik: 
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  “Let’s run that scenario in reverse to highlight how “American exceptionalism” has become a chronic condition of irrational double-think. If a Russian warship was to approach the US coastline in similar fashion — even if theoretically in international waters — we can be sure that US fighter jets would be scrambled and forcefully deployed. The Russian ambassador would also probably be summoned in Washington.”
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  “The fundamental question is: who is provoking whom,” Professor Cohen underscored. “It’s hard to see where Russia is threatening NATO, it is responding to what NATO is doing,” he stressed.
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  To complicate matters further, such NATO moves can only stir memories of the Nazi German invasion in 1941 in Russian minds — the last time such a considerable military force mobilized on the country’s western border.
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