Russia must rely on efficient weapons not to lose in arms race - pundit
RIA Novosti
Moscow, 4 June: The world arms race triggered by the US plans to develop a global missile defence system is already in progress and in this situation Russia has to rely on high-efficiency weapons which are capable of overcoming components of the US missile defence system, Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika foundation, believes.
A number of experts started talking about a possible resumption of the arms race after the Russian president said in his interview to G8 media that Russia would have to "take relevant steps" if part of the US strategic nuclear potential appeared in Europe and threatened Russia. At the same time Putin said: "Of course, it is likely that we'll have new targets in Europe."
"It (arms race) is already in progress," Nikonov told RIA Novosti in an interview over the phone.
"The USA has much broader possibilities in the military sphere. They spend on defence around 25-30 times as much as the Russian Federation. As for the Russian Federation, it would be a suicide to get involved in the race with the USA. The US economy is much larger than Russian - we do not need this. It is necessary to rely on high-efficiency weapons capable of overcoming missile defence components," Nikonov says.
He added that Putin had said quite clearly in his interview that defence spending of the Russian Federation should not exceed 2.7 per cent of GDP". Nikonov said that "any country could reach this figure." When commenting on the current relations between Moscow and Washington, he described them as the worst for the last 20 years. At the same time he is sure that "there can be no cold war".
"It (cold war) was quite a long episode in history that could be described as bipolar confrontation of the two world systems in any place in the world. There is no such system now. There is only one superpower in the world. This is the USA with its global interests, not Russia," Nikonov said.
He added that there was no confrontation between Russia and the USA. "At the same time yes, this is the worst period in relations over the past 20 years and the trend is for them to get only worse," Nikonov said. He sees the cause of deterioration in relations between Russia and the USA first of all in "the continued American policy that has been carried out for the last 15 years and has remained unchanged - if you don't do something that meets the US interests, the relations will worsen".
Nikonov made the point that though Russia had for over 15 years been making concessions in one way or another, "relations had been deteriorating anyway and it received absolutely nothing in return".
"At some point Russia just had enough and now the Russian position lies in the intention not to support US actions that threaten stability in the world and directly oppose national interests of the Russian Federation," he added.