The American director told Sputnik News: “[Russia-US] relations are dramatic and dangerous. Partly, I really believe, that the United States has built-up an industry, the military industrial complex, which requires feeding. To feed such a monster with $6.5 billion a year, you have to create an enemy.”
Speaking about the expansion of NATO, Stone, a former soldier, emphasized that the United States has been trying to find enemies and, warned that terrorism could spread due to global over-militarization. He said the current tensions between Russia and the United States were unnecessary.
Stone also noted that Russia was no threat. “Mr. Putin…has not acted in any way to threaten Europe or the United States. This has been blown out of proportion into a major threat like Russia is about to take over the world. It makes no sense now,” Stone said.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin meanwhile said that Russia would give a “suitable response” hinting that it would cost NATO to disrupt a strategic balance. Putin hinted to Stone that attacking Russia would eventually become a costly exercise in “The Putin Interviews” since it made little strategic sense. The documentary series is broadcast by the Showtime television network.
Putin said surrounding Russia was “a big, glaring strategic mistake of our partner because Russia will give a suitable response” and launch an arms race. “Our response will be much cheaper. It [equipment] may be rougher somewhere, but it will be effective. We shall preserve this so-called strategic balance,” Putin said.
To preserve such a strategic balance, would require far less funds without sacrificing effectiveness, the Russian president said. Russia is almost completely surrounded by US missile defense systems, Putin pointed out.
“The United States has unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. We have been told for all this time that ‘this move is not about you,’ ‘nothing threatens you,’ as the move has been allegedly taken against Iran. But now there are no problems with Iran, the [nuclear] deal has been signed with it. Iran has abandoned all nuclear military weapons programs. The United States agreed with it and signed the corresponding document. However, the missile defense program with its elements in Europe continues further. Against whom is it aimed? Obviously, it prompts us to respond to the situation somehow,” Putin said.
The president added that due the collapse of the Soviet Union and Iran’s decision to abandon its military nuclear weapons program, NATO expansion and the missile defense system in Europe made no sense.
“There are two threats here for us, for Russia. The first is the deployment of missile interceptors in the immediate vicinity of our borders in eastern European countries, and the second threat is that anti-missile launch pads could be converted into launch pads for attack missiles. In eastern Europe, on water, in the sea, they will be installed on ships patrolling the Mediterranean and northern seas, they are being installed on Alaska,” Putin told Stone in the interview.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said after the US Senate reached a bipartisan decision to boost sanctions against Moscow, that Washington’s allies and partners are begging the US to improve relations with Russia.
“I have yet to have a bilateral, one-on-one, a poolside conversation with a single counterpart in any country: in Europe, Middle East, even South-East Asia, that has not said to me: please, address your relationship with Russia, it has to be improved,” Tillerson said on Tuesday during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations.
Allies were urging the US to review its Russian policy said Tillerson, because they “believe worsening this relationship will ultimately worsen their situation”.
That might be a valid concern as the annual Global Peace Index, recently released for June 2017, has found that violence has increased significantly over the past decade.
In nine of the ten lowest-ranking countries – the world’s “least peaceful” countries – US-led “regime change” operations have contributed to the violence.
The countries at the bottom of the list included Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Ukraine as well as the US. The United States sank in this year’s Global Peace Index, currently ranking 114 out of the 163 nations surveyed, a decrease showing the greatest decline measured in any country this year.
[BRIGADE] PJB: Are We Nearing Civil War? https://t.co/hMT3nm3oyU
— Patrick J. Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) June 13, 2017
Street violence before, during and after the 2016 US presidential election, as well as a continued rise in homicide rates, have contributed to the US ranking being lowered.
The United States’ involvement in military conflicts abroad was not factored in.
The Russian president also revealed that the United States openly supported terrorists in Russia’s Chechnya Republic both financially and via political means.
“If to speak about a political support, there is no need in proving evidence. It has been done publicly, openly. And if to speak about urgent financial support — we have such evidence and furthermore have already provided it to our US colleagues,” Putin said in the interview.
According to the Russian leader Moscow received a response from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on the matter.
“Indeed, we have later received via our partner links a letter from the US CIA, which said that our colleagues consider that they have a right to maintain relations with all the representatives of the opposition and would continue to do so. It was obvious that the speech was not only about opposition groups, but about terrorist groups and organizations. But at the same time they had been presented as just opposition,” Putin revealed.
“The cold war is in the past, we have clear, transparent relations with the whole world, with Europe, with the United States, and of course we were counting on their support and instead we saw US security services supporting terrorists. And I will tell you something which I believe is important, we have a strong opinion that our US partners support Russia in words, speak of their readiness to cooperate, including in righting terrorism, while in reality they use these terrorists to destabilize the intra-political situation in Russia,” Putin said.
Within the framework of the so-called Cold War the US agencies, such as CIA, provided assistance to a number of militant groups fighting against the Soviet Union during Moscow’s campaign in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, which is responsible for a number of notorious terrorist attacks, including 9/11, was one of the radical Islamic movements Putin singled out.
