Russia should ignore Washington's 'new Cold War'

Washington desperately needs a new Cold War with Russia to ensure a healthy Military-Security Complex and to maintain global hegemony, former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts told RT in an interview.

"The best thing the Russian government could do is just ignore [Washington's rhetoric] and go on making its relations with China, India, Brazil, and South America, and go on about its business and leave the dollar system, and simply quit trying to be accepted by Washington," said Roberts, also an economist and columnist on global affairs.

RT:The way that some US officials are speaking, it seems that NATO seriously believes that Russia is set to invade the Baltic states.

PCR: What this is all about is that Washington had hoped to grab Ukraine, especially the Russian naval base in Crimea, in order to cut Russia off from the port and access to the Mediterranean. Now, Washington lost that game. They're trying to retrieve it by starting a new Cold War, and that's what all this talk is about.

They're pretending that Russia is going to invade the Baltics or Eastern Europe. This is absurd.

RT:NATO is building up its forces in the Baltic region. Isn't this a dangerously provocative step in terms of a new Cold War?

PCR: Washington wants a Cold War, they need it. They've been defeated in Afghanistan, they were blocked from attacking Syria and Iran, so they've got to keep the military-security complex funded, because that's where an important part of their campaign contributions comes from. When Washington gives the taxpayers' money to the military sector, it is cycled back in campaign contributions to keep them in office. They have to have conflict. With the wars in the Middle East winding down, apparently, they have to start new conflict, and since they lost their plan to take over Ukraine - which has defected, much of it, back to Russia - they're going to start a new Cold War.That's what this means. Now they haven't put enough troops or aircraft in these countries to make any difference, but they want to.

So what Russia is faced with is a new Cold War, and the best thing the Russian government could do is just ignore it and go on making its relations with China, India, Brazil, and South America, and go on about its business and leave the dollar system, and simply quit trying to be accepted by Washington.

Washington is not going to accept - let me read you the [former US Defense Department Deputy Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz Doctrine: "Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new Defense strategy, and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under their control, be sufficient to generate global power." By "hostile power," Wolfowitz means any country that is not under Washington's thumb - any independent country.

So that's the doctrine here, and I think the best thing the Russian government can do is acknowledge that that is the doctrine. They can't work anything out with this doctrine because Russia - being a rising, powerful state, like China - is by definition a "hostile power."

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.