New Cold War

Russia could aim nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it joins NATO and accepts the deployment of anti-missile defense elements on its territory, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. Speaking at a news conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Putin said Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO would restrict its sovereignty. "That raises the question for Russia of the need for retaliatory actions," Putin said.

Washington is trying to gauge whether Russia's recent bomber mission near a U.S. aircraft carrier indicated Moscow's return to a Cold War "mind-set" and is considering how the Pentagon should respond, a senior U.S. military officer said on Tuesday.

U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers, including one that buzzed an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.

Senior U.S. military commanders in Europe are urging Pentagon leaders to keep four Army combat brigades on the continent because they believe their strategic location makes them critical to responding to situations around the world.

MOSCOW, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - The missile defense elements the U.S. plans to deploy in Poland could be used as shock weapons, and present a real threat to Russia, a Russian military expert said on Thursday. "The antimissile missiles the U.S. plans to deploy in Poland are capable of flying along a ballistic trajectory, and can be considered a shock weapon. They can easily be equipped with special warheads and are fairly precise," Professor Vladimir Zavaly, a missile defense expert, told RIA Novosti.

Missile technology, fighter jet parts, night vision goggles and other U.S. wartime equipment increasingly are being illegally smuggled to potential adversaries, such as China and Iran, the federal government said Thursday.

Even as Russo-American tensions smolder from Eastern Europe and Central Asia to the Arctic seabed, the secretary of state is denying the onset of a renewed Cold War. Yet, unmistakable signals of a counter-balancing effort by Russia and China were sent last month through the largest-ever war games of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.), a six-nation anti-United States alliance.