Moscow’s latest saber-rattling — flying long-range bomber patrols toward the U.S. and Britain, launching planes from its sole aircraft carrier, redeploying the Russian fleet to the Mediterranean, engaging in war games with China and several central Asian nations — doesn’t mean the Cold War has returned. What it does signal is Russia’s willingness, emboldened by the oil wealth once again flowing to the government, to begin reasserting its historic role as a strategic counterweight to Washington. And if it can’t quite muster the heft to do that alone, Moscow is increasingly allying with other nations to challenge America’s global hegemony.
Source: Time.