Commentary
Russian President Vladimir Putin finally abandoned hope in mid-September that he could rebuild a bridge to the West.
With that realization, he committed Russia to the new anti-Western pact.
The turning point was the signal Putin received from the United Kingdom over the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. It had little to do with the military setbacks in the Ukraine war, for which he had already begun planning.
Russia’s new, harder-line anti-Western policy was essential for building a new strategic bloc with China, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, and, de facto but integrally, NATO member Turkey.
This is the “new Warsaw Pact.” It signaled that the Russian bid to regain control of Central Asia—which Russia had controlled from the late 19th century until 1991—was now also in full swing. It also meant that the U.S. plan to revive the Iran nuclear deal was, in reality, dead….