Russia said on Monday it had built new barracks for troops on a disputed chain of islands near Japan and would build more facilities for armored vehicles, a move likely to anger Tokyo after it urged Moscow to reduce its military activity there.
As Russia maintains their pointless and counterproductive hostility toward the West, Russia is seeking to anger Japan in the east, too?
Unless this apparent anti-Japanese move is designed to disguise a Russian pivot to the Far East to build up capabilities to deter or defeat China, this type of move makes no sense to me.
Of course, after Russia moves troops to the Far East to "face Japan," Russia could erase that bad effect on Japan (and America) very quickly with a peace treaty with Japan.
And then Russia could reduce tensions in the West that I think could be a case of Russia concealing their appeasement of China.
As I've said many times, it is difficult to hide what you are doing. And Russia can't hide what they are doing in the Far East. Real concealment consists of convincing foes that what they see is for something that isn't a threat to them at all.
Basically, Russia's search for a Far East strategy is confusing only because Russia won't admit--yet--that the point of a Russian Far East strategy has to be deterring China.
