Who is threatening whom

Why is the U. Is it a case of: "Every madman thinks all other men mad? As a country with a dark history of war, occupation, genocide and war crimes, the U. In contrast, the Islamic Republic of Iran believes that prevention is better than rehabilitation. So, Iran has always taken necessary actions for defensive purposes since the inception of the Islamic Revolution. On top of that, it reacts to threats with diplomatic language first and if it does not operate, it would prefer to recourse to international communities before applying the same language as the source of the threat.

Despite that, there are questions that are repeatedly being asked like who is afraid of whom, and who is really threatening whom and what will happen if the U. These questions look preposterous but are legitimate considering the history of the two countries' ties. Therefore, the goal is to really understand that misunderstandings in the interpretation of the threats both for Iran and the U.

It does no good to lambaste pugnacious American foreign policy since its warlike policies are part of the inseparable and undeniable characteristic of a typical superpower. Contrarily, it is unjustifiable to scrutinize a targeted country for their defensive measures.

The latter applies to Iran, despite the fact that the country has also been jockeying for resolving the gaps and differences with the West, specifically with the U. Based on the characteristics of a typical superpower, adoption of provocative actions and threats are undeniable parts of U. However, the U. The parameters are as follows. First, the U. We can't claim that the U. However, a U. Despite many uprisings and demonstrations against the system in Iran, Iranians will never support any military action against the country, and the system is still capable of mobilizing people any time for a counterattack.

The Trump administration has been threatening Iran through forming alliances with some of Iran's Persian Gulf Arab neighbors to convince world leaders and international communities that Iran is a threat. Although this assessment seems to belong in the Cold War era, Putin has revived Russia's nuclear deterrence capability since Putin has argued that the United States has destabilized the parity by unilaterally withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, invading Iraq outside of the UN system, enlarging NATO and ending its commitment to multi-lateralism.

From Russia's perspective, the US has been acting like a rogue state, which has led Putin to pursue a strong anti-American policy in response. As a carry-over from communist era policy, Blank contended that Russia's foreign policy demands a permanent state of hostility with the US through information warfare, which in effect creates a "cold peace. Creating hostility with the US allows Russia to accumulate weapons and intimidate the countries in its near-abroad in order to balance US power.

Therefore, the missile defense treaties are seen by the Russians as a direct threat because they could have the capacity to inhibit Russia's first-strike capabilities and thus disturb the parity they seek. It seems irrelevant to Russia that the United States no longer considers Russia to be a threat to its security and in the recent past has deemphasized the role of nuclear weapons in its foreign policy strategy.

Moreover, the US does not view Europe as being within its sphere of influence or in direct confrontation with Russia's sphere, but simply views Europe as part of the "West": the community of democratic, free-market nations that are its closest allies. Over the years, the US has run hot and cold on European integration, moving back and forth between disdain for increased unity when it does not support the US policy, to fostering unity behind a stated US goal.

Finally, Blank urged the US to revive multilateralism to bind European countries together behind its goals: if Europe is seen by the US only as a geographical region, Russia will be able to do whatever it likes.

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But are they really? Whom is often confused with who. Who is a subjective-case pronoun, meaning it functions as a subject in a sentence, and whom is an objective-case pronoun, meaning it functions as an object in a sentence. Who , like I, he, she , we , and they , is used as the subject of a sentence. That means it performs actions.

Who is doing the rescuing in the first sentence. Similarly, who called and who baked in the other examples.

Whom is a little trickier. Like me , him , her , us , and them , whom is the object of a verb or preposition. That means whom is acted on. We also note that the US has been reluctant to stay within the treaties on strategic offensive arms, and that it is pursuing the Prompt Global Strike concept, and developing projects to deploy strike weapons in outer space.

This, understandably, will not reinforce the security of Europe or of Poland itself. Lavrov then went on to say that if Poland, under the circumstances, chose a "special allied relationship" with Washington then it would have to bear the responsibilities and risks involved and that Moscow, in principle, opposed having its relations with third parties being a function of Russian-American disputes. Thus Russia's arms control posture also represents its continuing demand for substantive if not quantitative parity as well as for deterrence with a perceived adversarial United States in order to prevent Washington from breaking free of the Russian embrace and following policies that Russia deems antithetical to its interests.

Moreover, that parity is calculated not just globally but in regional balances as well so that Russia also demands a regional qualitative or substantive parity with America at various regional levels, most prominently Europe.

Russia's demand for restoring parity entails not an unreachable numerical parity, but rather a strategic stability or equilibrium where both sides' forces remain mutually hostage to each other in a deterrent relationship. Furthermore Russia wants to relate to key countries and regions irrespective of its relations with America so that it can have a free hand in regard to them and thus resents the presence of American power in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Indeed, not only does it wish to shackle US power to the mutual hostage relationship of mutual deterrence and thus mutually agreed destruction MAD , it also clearly believes, as Lavrov's and dozens of other threats to Poland and other states show, that its security remains contingent upon its ability to intimidate Europe with nuclear weapons and threats.

It does this through scholars-in-residence, seminars, policy study groups, media commentary, international conferences and publications. The program investigates European approaches to policy issues of importance to the United States, including globalization, digital transformation, climate, migration, global governance, and relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

Read more. Close Search Search. Show Streaming. Explore More. Blog post. By Alex Long on November 7, Part of the Meeting Reports Publication. By Stephen Blank. Europe Eastern Europe. Download the publication. As Dmitri Trenin has suggested, Moscow claims that missile defenses represent an American perception of threats from Russian nuclear missiles.