US fearful of Russia’s growing military power: Analyst

Russia’s growing military power is driving the belligerent rhetoric adopted by US military and civilian leaders towards Moscow, says a geopolitical analyst from New York.

“Russia is militarily getting stronger and that is what I think the heads in Washington are really fearful of,” Eric Draitser said in an interview with Press TV.

The outgoing US Army chief of staff, General Ray Odierno, said Wednesday that Russia is the top military threat to the United States. He said the US had to increase its ability to move quickly to the region if needed, and increase interoperability with other NATO forces.

Draitser noted that US officials “understand that their grip on power is no longer economic.”

“Clearly, China has surpassed the United States in terms of economic leverage and economic muscle,” he said.

“What the United States is able to do is guarantee and consolidate its hegemony through military force and through physical and logistical domination,” the analyst observed. “And the Russians are now presenting an obstacle to that and that is what they are fearful of.”

To achieve that, Draitser said, “The United States is going to ratchet up the conflict in Ukraine” and “continue to project its power throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states.”

“We see continuous references to so-called Russian aggression against the Baltic States which of course has not happened,” he added.

“If they [US officials] can now turn to Russia and say that Russia is the primary threat--not international terrorism, not China, or anybody else, but Russia--then they can fall back on the old means of the Cold War. They can then justify all of these policies and they can further move towards consolidating their hegemony, that is to say their imperial dominance throughout the European states and really throughout the world,” Draitser noted.

“That’s why you are going to hear these statements repeated over and over again. When you hear a talking point such as ‘the primary threat’, there are multiple reasons for it; not only because they think it’s true, but because they think it is politically expedient to say so,” he concluded.

US General Joseph Dunford, the nominee to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also told Congress last month that Russia posed the greatest security threat to the United States.

"My assessment today… is that Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security," said Dunford, who is the current commander of the Marine Corps.

Relations between the United States and Russia are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War in 1991, largely due to the crisis in Ukraine.

The ties deteriorated after US-backed forces ousted the Ukraine’s elected president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

The US and its allies accuse Moscow of sending troops into eastern Ukraine in support of the pro-Russian forces. Moscow has long denied involvement in Ukraine's crisis.

Moscow says Washington is responsible for the escalating tension in Ukraine through sending arms in support of the Ukrainian army.

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