That's a somewhat biased article, one only has to look at the diagrams to see that; whilst the diagram is accurate as far as it goes, where are the arrows pointing from the US flag at Angola, Turkey, Vietnam etc, etc? (If I list them all we'll run out of room for flags) or the ones pointing from Israel at the several arabic nations it has launched attacks on? There could be lots more arrows pointing from allsorts of other flags too, but to be totally fair they ought to all be on there and not just the ones from 'big bad nasty Russia', if anyone is going to do a diagram painting themself as the man in the white hat, they ought to endeavor to be truthful at least.
Whether you like Putin or not, the overtures from the US have indeed encouraged nations to get nuclear and conventional weapons in order to prevent attack, there's no doubt about that. Witness the way the United States backed off from its intitial threats toward North Korea when they started demonstrating weaponry with considerable capabilities, it's a similar story with Iran too, one whiff of that diesel sub and suddenly it's all quiet on the Middle Eastern front as far as the Bush administration's overtures towards Iran have been in recent weeks.
It takes at least two sides to have a war, even a cold one.
Chock