JRL NEWSWATCH: “A brazen foray into the Barents yields predictable Cold War-type friction” – Responsible Statecraft/ Lyle J. Goldstein

June 5, 2020 JRL Russia List JRL NewsBlog, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Military, NATO, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations

File Photo of U.S. Naval Ships in Joint Exercises with UK in Barents Sea, adapted from defense.gov image with photo credit to U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Anthony Nichols

” … [M]ilitary escalations in the High North need more attention … [not] the [U.S.] media focus … on … Russian trolls, social media influence peddlers, spies, and various ‘useful idiots.’ … [W]hen the New York Times … seemingly … tr[ied] to investigate what might actually be going on under the … waters of the Barents and off the Norwegian coastline, they ended up inexplicably focusing on how such operations might impact Facebook and Twitter, evincing little or no interest … in … strategic nuclear calculations … constitut[ing] the fundamentally ominous basis for … Russian and American operations in these frigid ocean depths. It’s high time a new generation of American strategists and their reporter friends realize … there is a yawning and highly significant gap separating social media shenanigans from nuclear warfare. Washington needs to ‘grow up[]’ and … re-prioritize nuclear stability with Russia … arms control, crisis management and … strategic restraint and reassurance …. [A]ny hint of improving U.S.-Russia relations … represent[s] … much needed good news, even if the conventional press cannot fathom this.”