Cold War 2.0?

The current discord between the United States and Russia seems to be getting worse.  It clearly is not the 1980s Cold War all over again but it might be a new one.  And it seems ridiculous.

The United States seems to be hysterically shouting about everything the Russians may or may not have done.  It seems to date back to the Syrian crisis back in 2013 when Vladimir Putin acted more like a peacemaker (!) than a Barrack Obama who seemed determined to hit Damascus with a missile strike that would have done more harm than good.

After the Syrian lunacy, there was a definite carping tone in the US media about Russian shortcoming in the Olympics.  Everyone should have been happy that the normally inefficient Russkies managed to pull the whole thing off.

Then, during the Winter Olympics, the Ukrainian crisis erupted and the Russians reacted by seizing Crimea.  At no time, has the Russian concern that the democratically elected government of Ukraine was overthrown by neo-Nazis with what appeared to be at least tacit Western approval.  That feeds into Russian paranoia but no one in NATO seems to want to address that.

Now there are never ending sanctions, which are beginning to look like acts of war and don't appear to be doing any good since Russia's economy has few US links.  The Europeans will be hurt worse and it seems that France and Britain have no problems continuing to see weapons to Russia. 

Russia has been tossed out of the G-8 and seems to be turning the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) into a counter G-5.

Then came the clumsy effort to pin the tragedy of a Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine on Russia, accusations of Russian artillery hitting Ukrainian soil (but the "pictures" show no wreckage of actual targets) and now a shrill scream about an alleged violation of the 1987 INF treaty.

Next they will be shouting about taking the 2018 World Cup from Russia.

Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, no one is going to take the United States seriously.

All Washington is doing, while Israel and Gaza burn, Libya turns into Mad Max Country, and our own southern border descends into chaos, is making matters worse.  Better to have constructive dialogue than to push Russia and China together into a continental alliance that will span most of the world.

Please, somebody in Washington look at a map.