The world is now on the brink of a new Cold War-style confrontation, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned the West’s political elite at the Munich Security Conference on February 13, updating the historic speech President Vladimir Putin gave at the same summit in 2007.

The speech carries particular weight after warnings of a possible military clash that reverberated after Turkey, a NATO member, shot down a Russian bomber by the Syrian border in November 2015.

“NATO’s policy with regards to Russia has remained unfriendly and opaque. One could go as far as to say that we have slid back to a new Cold War,” Medvedev said. “Almost on an everyday basis we are called one of the most terrible threats either to NATO as a whole or to Europe, or to the United States.”

Medvedev repeated Putin’s complaint that the Western military alliance’s expansion eastward was seen by Russia as threatening and said things have gotten “worse” since 2007. Nevertheless, the Russian Prime Minister’s message was that Russia is still willing to talk and wanted to find a way out of the impasse.

“This is a road to nowhere. Everyone will suffer, mark my words. It is vitally important that we join forces to strengthen a new global system,” Medvedev said, warning that terrorism will spread to every nation if states do not band together.

To drive the message home, Russia waved sticks and carrots around in a piece of grand political theater. As the delegates sat down in the Bavarian capital, Russia’s air force launched its largest raid since World War II on the Syrian rebel stronghold of Aleppo, which could pile more refugee pressure on Europe and wipe Western proxy “moderate” rebels from the field. At the same time, Putin talked to the U.S. President Barack Obama – both leaders stayed away from Munich – about a possible “united front” against terrorism in Syria. Even the Russian Orthodox Church was in a conciliatory mood, as the Pope and the Patriarch met for the first time in a millennium.

The pair of the Russian leaders’ speeches in Munich leave the West with a dilemma. Putin’s original address carried a simple message: Russia is back, and while Russia wants to be friends with Europe as Russia’s “natural partner,” the West needs to respect Russia’s national interests, or the Kremlin will react harshly.

As the West was still riding high on the Cold War “victory” over the Soviet Union, Putin’s warning was simply ignored. This time around, Medvedev’s warnings are a lot more palpable. The question for the West after this summit meeting is whether to appease Russia and make concessions, or tough it out and risk seeing Russia in dire straits with unpredictable consequences for the whole of the emerging Europe and now the Middle East.

Medvedev’s plan

The Russian premier ran through five points in his speech, highlighting Russia’s main current complaints and concerns. However, much of it was simply reproaching the West for not paying Russia due respect, thereby fueling the Kremlin’s sense of fear.

“Political expediency is taking priority over simple and clear economic reason,” Medvedev said, citing the decision of the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) to change its “lending into arrears” policy to Ukraine’s benefit in its row over an unpaid USD3 billion Russian Eurobond, as an example of the international community’s efforts to run Russia down.

“We regret that the practice of unilateral economic pressure in the form of sanctions is gaining momentum. This is undermining the operating foundations of international economic organizations, including the World Trade Organization,” Medvedev said.

He also touched on Ukraine, repeating that the Ukrainians have not upheld their part of the Minsk II bargain, which is the cause of the lack of progress, highlighting Kiev’s failure to put in place most of its main obligations under the deal: an amnesty law, local elections, and changes to Ukraine’s constitution.

However, on Syria, Medvedev spun Russia’s involvement as based on its very real fear of terrorism. This is a real concern for the country with its large Muslim population and a long history of instability and separatism in the southern provinces. More recently, Russia lost twice as many victims to a terrorist bomb on board of a tourist plane flying from Egypt than Paris did in the terrorist shootings in November, which Medvedev was also careful to mention.

“We sincerely believe that if we fail to normalize the situation in Syria and other conflict areas, terrorism will become a new form of war that will spread around the world. It will not be just a new form of war, but a method of settling ethnic and religious conflict and a form of quasi-state governance,” Medvedev said, suggesting that the Kremlin has a real issue with the way the West wants to end this conflict.

The “united front against terrorism” also echoes Putin’s speech last September to the U.N. General Assembly, his first appearance before the world body in years, where he also called for a grand coalition against terrorism similar to the cooperation agreement signed at Yalta against Hitler. Putin also highlighted in that speech that Russia is afraid of terrorism.

“We must join efforts to address the problems that all of us are facing and create a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism. Similar to the anti-Hitler coalition, it could unite a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind. And of course, Muslim nations should play a key role in such a coalition,” Putin told the U.N.

That is the way out of the current impasse that Russia is offering: an anti-terror coalition that is governed by the U.N. The disagreement is over how this works in practice. In concrete terms, it boils down to whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be allowed to remain in office during a transition period. There is still no agreement on this point.

New sabre rattling

In the meantime, both sides are rearming. Russia is planning to spend RUB10 trillion (USD147 billion) on modernizing its army by 2020 and is now actively using its military might when the Kremlin feels its interests are being ignored. On the flip side, the West is also guilty of reactive policymaking following the annexation of Crimea. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced at Munich that in addition to a new NATO rapid reaction force based in the Baltics, Washington will quadruple military spending in Europe this year.

Medvedev reiterated President Putin’s complaint that NATO’s eastward expansion is antagonizing Russia and will draw a counter-response if the issue is left unaddressed. Medvedev summed up the fears laid out in Putin’s 2007 speech by asking: “Did we overstate this? Were our assessments of the situation too pessimistic? Unfortunately, I have to say that the situation is now even worse than we feared.”

Ignoring these concerns eight years ago led directly to Russia’s rearming. For all of the West’s criticism of Putin’s being “all tactics and no strategy,” the Munich speeches reflect the Kremlin’s long-range policies laid out in plain English.

Medvedev talked of a new Cold War, but we are not there yet. The hallmarks of the Cold War were the proxy wars fought between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, such as Washington’s disastrous decision to back the Afghan mujahedeen, which set the tinder of radical Islam alight, so that war is still being fought decades later.

Russia and the U.S. are close to a proxy war in Ukraine, which was pointedly downplayed in the Munich speeches. But while the U.S. has been supplying Kiev with “defensive” weapons, it has so far managed to strike a delicate balance between giving Kiev enough equipment to freeze the line of contact, without giving it enough to turn the clash into a proxy war with Russia.

Munich was a crucial meeting, and everyone is looking for a way out of the imbroglio, but little progress seems to have been made.

“This is a hinge point,” Kerry told the Munich Security Conference on February 13. “We hope this week can be a week of change. It is critical for all of us to take advantage of this moment to make this cessation of hostilities work,” Kerry said to the Munich delegates, as a new Syrian deal was announced.

Medvedev was also offering a way out, as Russia is increasingly anxious to end the conflict with the West and the associated sanctions. But the Kremlin has also nailed its flag to the mast and will not back down. It is prepared to compromise, but only so far.

Bismarck’s formula

On the eve of the First World War, the preeminent European diplomat Otto von Bismarck was asked what was his secret to doing politics, to which he replied, “Make a good treaty with Russia.”

The issue today is if it is still necessary to make a deal with Russia. Putin’s obvious frustration in 2007 clearly showed that the West didn’t think it was necessary then. With Russia’s now playing a central role in two wars, the question is if the West sees the need or is willing to make a good treaty now? The whole point of Putin’s various campaigns is to show the West that Russia can’t be ignored. Medvedev held out an olive branch and invited the world to negotiate.

“Can we unite in order to stand up against the challenges I mentioned? Yes, I am confident that we can,” the Prime Minister said. “Yesterday we witnessed a perfect example in the area of religion. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church met in Cuba following hundreds of years when the two churches did not communicate. Of course, restoring trust is a challenging task. It’s difficult to say how long it would take. But it is necessary to launch this process,” Medvedev said.

Does the West really have a choice? Putin is playing a very tough game. He has already shown himself willing to sacrifice Russia’s hard-won economic gains and put himself in political danger at home in order to make his geopolitical point.

The world is now on the brink of a new Cold War-style confrontation, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned the West’s political elite at the Munich Security Conference on February 13, updating the historic speech President Vladimir Putin gave at the same summit in 2007.

The speech carries particular weight after warnings of a possible military clash that reverberated after Turkey, a NATO member, shot down a Russian bomber by the Syrian border in November 2015.

“NATO’s policy with regards to Russia has remained unfriendly and opaque. One could go as far as to say that we have slid back to a new Cold War,” Medvedev said. “Almost on an everyday basis we are called one of the most terrible threats either to NATO as a whole or to Europe, or to the United States.”

Medvedev repeated Putin’s complaint that the Western military alliance’s expansion eastward was seen by Russia as threatening and said things have gotten “worse” since 2007. Nevertheless, the Russian Prime Minister’s message was that Russia is still willing to talk and wanted to find a way out of the impasse.

“This is a road to nowhere. Everyone will suffer, mark my words. It is vitally important that we join forces to strengthen a new global system,” Medvedev said, warning that terrorism will spread to every nation if states do not band together.

To drive the message home, Russia waved sticks and carrots around in a piece of grand political theater. As the delegates sat down in the Bavarian capital, Russia’s air force launched its largest raid since World War II on the Syrian rebel stronghold of Aleppo, which could pile more refugee pressure on Europe and wipe Western proxy “moderate” rebels from the field. At the same time, Putin talked to the U.S. President Barack Obama – both leaders stayed away from Munich – about a possible “united front” against terrorism in Syria. Even the Russian Orthodox Church was in a conciliatory mood, as the Pope and the Patriarch met for the first time in a millennium.

The pair of the Russian leaders’ speeches in Munich leave the West with a dilemma. Putin’s original address carried a simple message: Russia is back, and while Russia wants to be friends with Europe as Russia’s “natural partner,” the West needs to respect Russia’s national interests, or the Kremlin will react harshly.

As the West was still riding high on the Cold War “victory” over the Soviet Union, Putin’s warning was simply ignored. This time around, Medvedev’s warnings are a lot more palpable. The question for the West after this summit meeting is whether to appease Russia and make concessions, or tough it out and risk seeing Russia in dire straits with unpredictable consequences for the whole of the emerging Europe and now the Middle East.

Medvedev’s plan

The Russian premier ran through five points in his speech, highlighting Russia’s main current complaints and concerns. However, much of it was simply reproaching the West for not paying Russia due respect, thereby fueling the Kremlin’s sense of fear.

“Political expediency is taking priority over simple and clear economic reason,” Medvedev said, citing the decision of the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) to change its “lending into arrears” policy to Ukraine’s benefit in its row over an unpaid USD3 billion Russian Eurobond, as an example of the international community’s efforts to run Russia down.

“We regret that the practice of unilateral economic pressure in the form of sanctions is gaining momentum. This is undermining the operating foundations of international economic organizations, including the World Trade Organization,” Medvedev said.

He also touched on Ukraine, repeating that the Ukrainians have not upheld their part of the Minsk II bargain, which is the cause of the lack of progress, highlighting Kiev’s failure to put in place most of its main obligations under the deal: an amnesty law, local elections, and changes to Ukraine’s constitution.

However, on Syria, Medvedev spun Russia’s involvement as based on its very real fear of terrorism. This is a real concern for the country with its large Muslim population and a long history of instability and separatism in the southern provinces. More recently, Russia lost twice as many victims to a terrorist bomb on board of a tourist plane flying from Egypt than Paris did in the terrorist shootings in November, which Medvedev was also careful to mention.

“We sincerely believe that if we fail to normalize the situation in Syria and other conflict areas, terrorism will become a new form of war that will spread around the world. It will not be just a new form of war, but a method of settling ethnic and religious conflict and a form of quasi-state governance,” Medvedev said, suggesting that the Kremlin has a real issue with the way the West wants to end this conflict.

The “united front against terrorism” also echoes Putin’s speech last September to the U.N. General Assembly, his first appearance before the world body in years, where he also called for a grand coalition against terrorism similar to the cooperation agreement signed at Yalta against Hitler. Putin also highlighted in that speech that Russia is afraid of terrorism.

“We must join efforts to address the problems that all of us are facing and create a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism. Similar to the anti-Hitler coalition, it could unite a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind. And of course, Muslim nations should play a key role in such a coalition,” Putin told the U.N.

That is the way out of the current impasse that Russia is offering: an anti-terror coalition that is governed by the U.N. The disagreement is over how this works in practice. In concrete terms, it boils down to whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be allowed to remain in office during a transition period. There is still no agreement on this point.

New sabre rattling

In the meantime, both sides are rearming. Russia is planning to spend RUB10 trillion (USD147 billion) on modernizing its army by 2020 and is now actively using its military might when the Kremlin feels its interests are being ignored. On the flip side, the West is also guilty of reactive policymaking following the annexation of Crimea. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced at Munich that in addition to a new NATO rapid reaction force based in the Baltics, Washington will quadruple military spending in Europe this year.

Medvedev reiterated President Putin’s complaint that NATO’s eastward expansion is antagonizing Russia and will draw a counter-response if the issue is left unaddressed. Medvedev summed up the fears laid out in Putin’s 2007 speech by asking: “Did we overstate this? Were our assessments of the situation too pessimistic? Unfortunately, I have to say that the situation is now even worse than we feared.”

Ignoring these concerns eight years ago led directly to Russia’s rearming. For all of the West’s criticism of Putin’s being “all tactics and no strategy,” the Munich speeches reflect the Kremlin’s long-range policies laid out in plain English.

Medvedev talked of a new Cold War, but we are not there yet. The hallmarks of the Cold War were the proxy wars fought between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, such as Washington’s disastrous decision to back the Afghan mujahedeen, which set the tinder of radical Islam alight, so that war is still being fought decades later.

Russia and the U.S. are close to a proxy war in Ukraine, which was pointedly downplayed in the Munich speeches. But while the U.S. has been supplying Kiev with “defensive” weapons, it has so far managed to strike a delicate balance between giving Kiev enough equipment to freeze the line of contact, without giving it enough to turn the clash into a proxy war with Russia.

Munich was a crucial meeting, and everyone is looking for a way out of the imbroglio, but little progress seems to have been made.

“This is a hinge point,” Kerry told the Munich Security Conference on February 13. “We hope this week can be a week of change. It is critical for all of us to take advantage of this moment to make this cessation of hostilities work,” Kerry said to the Munich delegates, as a new Syrian deal was announced.

Medvedev was also offering a way out, as Russia is increasingly anxious to end the conflict with the West and the associated sanctions. But the Kremlin has also nailed its flag to the mast and will not back down. It is prepared to compromise, but only so far.

Bismarck’s formula

On the eve of the First World War, the preeminent European diplomat Otto von Bismarck was asked what was his secret to doing politics, to which he replied, “Make a good treaty with Russia.”

The issue today is if it is still necessary to make a deal with Russia. Putin’s obvious frustration in 2007 clearly showed that the West didn’t think it was necessary then. With Russia’s now playing a central role in two wars, the question is if the West sees the need or is willing to make a good treaty now? The whole point of Putin’s various campaigns is to show the West that Russia can’t be ignored. Medvedev held out an olive branch and invited the world to negotiate.

“Can we unite in order to stand up against the challenges I mentioned? Yes, I am confident that we can,” the Prime Minister said. “Yesterday we witnessed a perfect example in the area of religion. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church met in Cuba following hundreds of years when the two churches did not communicate. Of course, restoring trust is a challenging task. It’s difficult to say how long it would take. But it is necessary to launch this process,” Medvedev said.

Does the West really have a choice? Putin is playing a very tough game. He has already shown himself willing to sacrifice Russia’s hard-won economic gains and put himself in political danger at home in order to make his geopolitical point.