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US miscalculated Russia growing power: Expert

Monday, 28 December 2015 5:55 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 28 December 2015 5:58 PM ]

A file picture taken on October 3, 2015 shows a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber taking off from an airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia. (AFP photo)

The US and Europe’s hostile geopolitical policy towards Russia indicates that the West underestimated Moscow’s growing military and economic power, a Russian expert says.

“People who orchestrated this whole geopolitical scheme of bullying Russia definitely miscalculated,” said Vladimir Golstein, an associate professor of Slavic studies at Brown University in Rhode Island.

“You don’t want to wake a sleeping bear but that’s exactly what [the US] State Department did,” Golstein told Press TV on Monday.

Golstein said the Obama administration’s approach towards Russia reflects the perspective of the 1990s when Russia was devastated with Perestroika, a political movement within the country’s Communist Party that began in the 1980s, which is sometimes argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

American officials and military analysts have acknowledged that Russia’s military campaign against terrorist groups in Syria has been successful and has achieved Moscow’s central goal with relatively low costs.

Three months into Russia’s military operations in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved his main goal of stabilizing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and could sustain the mission at this level for years, Reuters reported on Monday, quoting unnamed US officials.

The acknowledgment comes despite public assertions by US President Barack Obama and his top aides that Putin launched an ill-conceived mission in support of President Assad and that it will likely fail.

The report also noted that since the onset of Moscow’s military campaign in Syria on September 30, Russia has suffered minimal casualties and, despite domestic fiscal woes, is handily covering the operation's cost, which analysts estimate at $1-2 billion a year.

A US intelligence official said the Russian mission is being funded from the country’ annual defense budget of about $54 billion.

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