Is it 1962 or 2014?

That’s the question we at USDemocrazy are asking after recent events in Eastern Europe.

Although a freshly negotiated ceasefire could be good news for the situation in Ukraine, the gunpoint abduction of an agent of the Estonian government by the Russians Friday morning promises to set off new Cold-War-esque tensions between the US and Russia.

Estonia is an ex-Soviet state and home to many ethnic Russians. It is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meaning the US is bound by international treaty to defend it in the case of  a Russian invasion.

President Obama traveled to Estonia to remind the world of this fact less than 48 hours before the Russian abduction. There he assured Eastern Europe:

The defense of Tallinn and Riga and Vilnius is just as important as the defense of Berlin and Paris and London.

Sounds like this could get ugly.

Although this minor kerfuffle is unlikely to trigger a global war, the circumstances highlight the apparent willingness of our adversaries to gleefully skip over Mr. Obama’s self-proclaimed “red lines” (hint: think Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2013).

Will Russia’s aggressive posture in Eastern Europe continue unchecked?

Is there any serious possibility of war between Russia and the US, over twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.