As NATO countries try to build military bases near Russian borders, Vladimir Putin froze Moscow’s commitments under a European arms control pact highlighting the continued deterioration of relations between Russia and the west.

Russian response should come as no surprise as US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe to protect from attacks by so-called ‘rogue states.’ The US wants to station 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, with radar operations in the Czech Republic. The Russians defy this US stance as the radar would not only detect any missile within the range but can also direct any western missile on to a target in that range.

Whoever is right on detail, the bottom-line is clear. The west, through NATO, has stepped into the vacuum created by the withdrawal of Russian forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

During the Gorbachev era, the new democratic Russia set a tremendous task of framing strategic partnership with its former adversary. However, stereotypes of NATO’s policies and considerable divergence of interests prevented Russia from building stable and lasting partnerships.

Russia is right to think the existence of radar on Russia’s border changes the strategic balance of nuclear forces negotiated. It comes up clearly that the era of MAD (mutual assured destruction) is ending and the era of U.S. nuclear primacy has begun.

However, the MAD debate may now seem like an ancient history, but it is actually more relevant than ever.

The presence of a new military rivalry between Moscow and Washington got a new facelift after Vladimir Putin delivered a speech highly critical of the United States at the Munich Security Conference last month bringing back the days of the cold war.

The war on terrorism is no longer a unifying factor. US and NATO have given birth to new arms race between the former arch-enemies at a time when American campaign to install democracy in Iraq and elsewhere is on a collapse and when it is more than important for US to have Russian support to roll back North Korea’s nuclear program, and most importantly persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment plans.

Although it is less visible that the military cooperation between Washington and Russia will develop but it is clear that Russia sees itself as a pole in a multi-polar world, aimed at counterbalancing U.S. might. Clearly whatever hopes Washington might have had in the days of Boris Yeltsin for a Western-oriented Russia are now gone. Moscow has left the Western orbit and has set out in a free flight.