It is quite easy to find editorials comparing the current situation in Eastern Europe to the Cold War.

Indeed, in nearly every major media outlet, the question has been asked as to whether or not the current events indicate a return to the days of Cold War politics.

Other commentators claim that a failure to take dramatic action in Eastern Europe is similar to the prewar policies of appeasement regarding the Third Reich that have since been trotted out during every subsequent international crisis.

However, these comparisons are both incorrect and potentially dangerous to the creation of an effective foreign policy regarding events in Eastern Europe. In fact, such attitudes may go a long way to making the crisis even worse than it currently is.

Unlike the Cold War, the current situation in the Ukraine is not a flash point between two vast alliances.

Russia is far less powerful than the USSR and sees itself as being on the defensive. And NATO is less unified than ever before, with a wide range of competing attitudes that are shaped by the member nations' individual questions of self-interest. 

Most importantly, the ideological conflict that existed during the Cold War has ceased to be a motivating factor for either group.

During the Cold War, the US and the USSR often clashed in regions that had little to offer either side in material terms. Rather, they were fighting for ideological dominance.

Today, Russian concerns regarding Ukraine are based on pragmatic issues of access to industrial and material resources, the strategic bases in Crimea and the perceived need to protect ethnic Russians.

Despite hysterical claims to the contrary, Russia's actions are focused on regaining control over areas that most Russians see as traditionally part of their nation.

Many Russians saw the increasing pro-EU alignment of the Ukraine as a threat to the economic and military security of their country. This was exacerbated by the Ukraine's possession of a number of industrial facilities that are vital to the Russian military.

For their part, the US and NATO are concerned with the partitioning of a country with growing ties to the EU.

In addition, continued disorder in this region could result in economic harm to both the EU and the US.

In both cases, the motivations are pragmatic ones rather than being ideological in nature, whatever the public statements might indicate.

The US and Russia are still cooperating on a wide range of issues, including the Syrian civil war and the negotiations surrounding Iran's nuclear program.

Despite the hostility sparked by Ukrainian events, it is clear that neither country is seeking to return to the Cold War policies of broad confrontation. Rather, this situation represents the conflicts that arise when questions of pragmatic national self-interest come into confrontation.

If this is the case however, then why are so many individuals and groups trying to cast this current crisis as the beginning of a new Cold War?

The first reason is an attempt to return to the somewhat simplistic geopolitical situation that existed during the Cold War.

For most audiences, the Cold War was a time when any issue could be phrased as a simple binary choice. Many individuals, confronted with an increasingly complex political world, long for a return to those simpler times.

More importantly for those seeking a policy of increased confrontation, Cold War imagery makes it easy to describe any more nuanced approach as a policy of surrender or appeasement.

By describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a mad tyrant bent on European domination, they make the implication that negotiations are useless for the simple reason that the opposing party has no rational objectives that can be analyzed and responded to.

Not only does this eliminate the need for a serious approach to a negotiated resolution to the crisis, it also provides an effective weapon to discredit domestic advocates of negotiation. 

Unfortunately, this is precisely the wrong approach to take. The fact of the matter is that unlike the situation during the Cold War, today Russia, Europe and the US are deeply dependent upon each other.

While the Ukraine is a serious crisis, it bears little resemblance to the existential fears that dominated politics during the Cold War. Negotiators and observers on both sides should remember this in order to avoid making a tense situation worse by overblown and inaccurate comparisons.

The author is a freelance writer based in Corona, California. charlesgray109@gmail.com
Newspaper headline: US-Russian chill doesn't mean Cold War