(July 30, 2014) Talk of a new Cold War is not only overblown but counterproductive to the West’s security interests.

This article by Lawrence Solomon, a policy analyst with Probe International, first appeared in The Hill on July 30, 2014.

“Cold War II” reads the cover of Time magazine, hyping a case for Russian belligerency and a restart to the Cold War that ended in 1991. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is beating the same drum, saying the U.S. Department of Defense is reviewing “our own readiness models to look at things we haven’t had to look at for 20 years.” As he stated last week at the Aspen Security Forum, “[Russia] has made the conscious decision to use its military force inside of another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives.”

But where exactly is the analogy with the Cold War? Today’s Russia is not ideologically motivated by communism, or any other ideology, as it was during the Cold War days. It isn’t preaching world domination, as it once did, and countries aren’t in danger of falling into the enemy camp like dominos, as they once were.

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Lawrence Solomon, executive director of Probe International’s sister division Energy Probe, and a columnist with Canada’s National Post, is a contributor to the top U.S. political website, The Hill. Email him at LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.