Talks with Russia on missile shield needed-Germany - Louis Charbonneau
NATO should heed Russian President Vladimir Putin's call for talks about a U.S. missile shield to be built in formerly communist eastern Europe, German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said on Monday.Putin used this weekend's high-profile security conference in Munich to accuse the United States of sparking a new arms race by trying to become the world's 'one single master', a speech one U.S. senator said smacked of Cold War rhetoric.
Even as each power declares publicly that it accepts no new Cold War is afoot, it privately calculates the significance of Putin's attack. They all recognize that Putin is exploiting two new facts of international life: America's difficulties over Iraq and Iran, and Russia's rising economic power as the second-largest energy producer in a world of high oil prices.
Indeed, Putin went directly from the Munich security conference, where he had leveled his fusillade at Washington, to meet with the First and Third World energy producers, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in the Gulf. One lesson everyone will draw, therefore, is that Russia intends to use energy as a bargaining chip in relations with former Soviet dependencies in Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States. How is each of these likely to react?
Erler said he viewed Putin's speech in the context of Russia's search for its proper place on the international stage, its increasing self-confidence and the increasing significance of its vast oil and gas resources.Erler said there were also constructive elements in Putin's speech which should not be ignored – his desire to avoid the militarisation of outer space and commitment to continuing to work on resolving the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.
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