US Second Fleet revived amid NATO-Russia tensions: a look back
A retrospective on the US Navy's re-establishment of its Second Fleet, reported on 4 May 2018, and the tensions cited for it.
What did the re-establishment of a US naval command say about the state of relations between NATO and Russia? On 7 May 2018, the question was still fresh, three days after the United States Navy re-established the United States Second Fleet.
The fleet had been disbanded in 2011. Its return, announced on 4 May 2018, was explained by the Navy as a response to recent heightened tensions between NATO and Russia.
The move was described in the context of what some scholars and journalists have called a Second Cold War, also termed Cold War II or a New Cold War. Those labels have been used for heightened geopolitical tensions in the 21st century, usually between the United States and NATO on one side and Russia or China on the other. Some commentators have used the terms as a comparison to the original Cold War, while others have discouraged applying them to ongoing tensions.
The reported reasoning was brief: a command shut down in 2011 was brought back because of the security climate between the alliance and Moscow. As of 7 May 2018, that was the stated rationale for the decision.
