Russia has decided to raise the stakes in an East-West standoff by threatening to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to NATO’s plan to do the same.
Russia has openly said that it doesn’t trust the U.S-led NATO organization and has been demanding security guarantees from the west as the west warn Russia of harsh sanctions if it attacked Ukraine.
It was reported that Russia deployed 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and was planning to invade the country, the accusation denied by the Russians as they demanded on the west (NATO) not to invite Ukraine into the organization or expand further east on the Russian border the demand NATO rejected as a standoff continues.
The intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe were banned under a 1987 treaty agreed between the Soviet Union leader Mikail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in what was hailed at the time as a major easing of cold war tensions but the U.S. under President Donald Trump pulled out of the treaty in 2019 accusing Russia of violations.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, the United States of America has about 3600 nuclear warheads in its active stockpile while Russia has about 4300 nuclear warheads in its active service making them by far the largest nuclear warhead holder in the world.
The nuclear warheads held by both U.S and Russia have the ability to destroy the World many times if deployed all together and it’s those nuclear warheads that have prevented a war between the two superpowers until now due to assured mutual destruction in an all-out nuclear war between the two countries.
The U.S is creating tensions with different countries which have challenged its hegemony in the world like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and other small countries have faced harsh sanctions like Cambodia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and others have faced wars like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ethiopia.
It’s those tensions that have been created in the last 20 years that are increasingly putting the whole world on edge of a new cold war and instabilities.
