What the Second Fleet's return signalled about NATO-Russia tensions

What did it mean when the United States Navy brought back a fleet it had shut down seven years earlier? By 7 May 2018, three days after the step was taken on 4 May 2018, the question was already part of a wider debate about relations between NATO and Russia.

On 4 May 2018, the US Navy re-established the United States Second Fleet, which had been disbanded in 2011. The Navy cited recent heightened tensions between NATO and Russia as the reason for the move.

Context

The stated rationale placed the decision within a broader pattern of confrontation. Commentators have used the labels Second Cold War, Cold War II and New Cold War 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 have used those terms as a comparison with the original Cold War, while others have discouraged applying them to ongoing tensions.

Implications

The clearest point is the Navy's own explanation: the fleet's return was tied to NATO-Russia tensions. Beyond that stated reasoning, the decision was a reversal of the 2011 disbanding, and it showed that Washington's naval planning was being adjusted in response to the security climate it described.

For readers in Kyiv and elsewhere in Europe, the episode is a marker of how the security environment was being characterised in early May 2018.