Cold War II started in 1999 with NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe

Continued. Read Part I of the story here

	NATO expansion
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Cold War II

In 2004 7 more countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO. NATO was now at the borders of the Russian Federation. As the new members were being welcomed into NATO, other countries were being “encouraged” to apply. This encouragement usually takes the form of encouraging civil unrest and if possible revolution in the target country, with the aim of installing a pro-American leadership. According to Guardian these colour revolutions are directly supported by the Western governments.

Georgia was thus encouraged and got its revolution. Then Ukraine which houses the Russian Black Sea fleet at Crimea was encouraged. The same encouragement is being given to various countries bordering Russia. There are talks of Georgia and even Azerbaijan joining NATO. All this expansion has required Russia to reassess its relationship with the West in general and NATO in particular.

To start with Russia has started to strengthen its army by increasing its defence budget. For example in 2005 Russia’s defense budget increased by 27,6% and again this year by 22% (taking inflation into account, these numbers will be lower). The share of the Russian defence budget that goes to purchase of new equipment this year is around - 70% (164 billion Rubles), up from 60% in 2005. Russia is modernising its armed forces in a hurry. In 2004 only 14.2% of its defence budget went for procurement of equipment. In 2006 that share went up to 70%. New and better equipment, along with a smaller and more professional army is going to give Russia better ability to protect its interest in the region and internationally.

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