Cold War tensions rising again

By Lewis W. DIUGUID

The Kansas City Star

The Russians must have thought they were on a 1950s-1960s set of a Cold War movie being filmed about the building political tensions between two superpowers.

Instead of a film, what happened Monday and Tuesday in the Baltic Sea was only too real. Russian Su-24 attack planes buzzed the USS Donald Cook multiple times getting as close as 30 feet to the Navy destroyer. The Russian jets appeared unarmed on Tuesday, but the commander of the USS Donald Cook said the planes flew a simulated attack profile, The Associated Press reports.

The Russians have ceased their brutal bombing raids in Syria in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in that country’s civil war. The U.S. military, which is still conducting airstrikes in Syria, often found its support of the rebels and against the Islamic State at odds with the Russian mission.

The Navy destroyer’s commander called the Russian pilots’ actions unsafe and unprofessional. That’s probably the nicest way to characterize it and certainly is stating the obvious.

The Russians certainly are upset with the United States still over sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea and Russia’s military involvement in eastern Ukraine. The concern in the U.S. and Europe continues to be over Russia’s exercise its political muscle under President Vladimir Putin.

In a four-hour, annual call-in show today with questions from Russians, ranging from personal matters to foreign policy, Putin said the U.S. must drop its “imperial ambitions” and consider Russia an equal partner.

USA Today reported that Putin also said: “America is not the problem we face, we need to deal with domestic problems first, roads, education, economic development. If we do that, America will not be the issue. ”

The U.S. and European Union economic sanctions have hurt the communist nation. The glut of crude oil on the world market depressing prices also has negatively affected Russia’s economy.

On the incidents in the Baltic Sea, U.S. officials planned to address the concern through diplomatic channels. The USS Cook reported Russian Su-24 planes making 20 close swipes over the ship on Monday.

On Tuesday a Russian KA-26 submarine-hunting helicopter circled the U.S. destroyer seven times at a low altitude to take photos. Afterward, a couple more Su-24 planes appeared to buzz the Cook 11 times.

It’s good that the U.S. forces on the Cook kept their cool and didn’t respond in a way that would have made that bad situation worse.

Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of The Kansas City Star’s Editorial Board. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.