The question suggests that Washington has altruistic motives while Russia has ulterior ones. Both powers are driven by ulterior motives. But it is Washington that initiated the escalation.

It is a case of an unchallenged reigning super power trying to prevent a former power from reasserting itself, from recovering part of its influence and clout in Europe. Russia, which has not given up its ambitions as a power to be reckoned with, is aggressively rejecting more isolation and containment.

The re-emergence of U.S.-Russian rivalry, in the most strident form since the end of the Cold War, is not promising to the future of disarmament and underscores a continuing arms race -- albeit not an asymmetrical one. Putin's remarks do not to create any more danger than Washington’s.

U.S. officials are likely to use Putin's stifling of press freedoms to underscore their point. Putin should be held accountable for his crackdown on the media, but the U.S. is also to be held accountable for its egregious human rights violations.

The attack on Putin's record is unfortunately used as a political tool to justify America's expansion of the missile defense system in Russia's neighborhood. Imagine if the situation were the reverse. Frankly the G8 should be more concerned with preventing the Cold War rivals’ animosity than with promoting a profiteering American war industry.

If it is humanity that the G8 is concerned about it, should start by listening to the voices of poor and the hungry who gathered in one of the poorest nations, Mali, to counter the decisions of the world's powerful. Economic decisions of the most powerful nations represented by the G8 are silent killers of the poor and the hungry. Endorsing policies that broaden poverty and hunger are invisible murderers as lethal, or even more lethal, than missiles.