The Two-Front Cold War

Vladimir Putin's Kremlin is militarizing Belarus and turning Alyaksandr Lukashenka's autocratic regime into a force multiplier in his ongoing war against the West. Russia's arms buildup in the Western exclave of Kaliningrad continues apace and -- together with the militarization of Belarus -- threatens the security of NATO allies in the Baltic states and Poland. But with the focus of the United States largely on a rising and increasingly bellicose China -- and with Russia being dismissed by many as a declining regional power -- fears are mounting that the European front is not getting the attention it demands. Can the West manage this new Cold War on two fronts? On this week’s Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks to former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer and Jonathan Katz, director of democracy initiatives at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, to get answers.