Putin rails against US foreign policy

Published: February 10 2007 15:46 | Last updated: February 10 2007 15:46

Vladimir Putin threw down the gauntlet to the west in a confrontational speech on Saturday, attacking what he called ?illegal? US unilateral military action and arguing it had made the world more dangerous.

In a speech before an annual security conference held in Munich, he attacked the US for its use of ?illegal? military force and its plans to build anti-missile defences in Europe, the expansion of Nato including countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, and a host of other western policies.

To an audience that included Robert Gates, US defence secretary, John McCain, US presidential contender, and a group of Washington lawmakers, Mr Putin declared the end of the unipolar world, which he described as a failure for the world and the US itself.

In a presumed reference mainly to the war in Iraq, Mr Putin said, ?unilateral illegal actions have not resolved any single problem,? emphasising the many more people who had been killed as a result of US military action.

He added: ?We don?t have enough force to resolve anything comprehensively.? He said that only the United Nations ? not Nato or the European Union - could authorise the use of military force around the world, and even then it should be as a last resort.

Mr Putin also called into question a nuclear missile disarmament treaty that formed the bedrock of arms reduction efforts during the cold war. He said he was concerned about the spread of medium range missiles around the world to countries such as North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and India.

In a worrying development for arms control advocates, he said that only the US and Russia had made commitments not to build such weapons ? and said these commitments had to be revisited to ensure security.

Under the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty agreed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the US and Soviet Union agreed to eliminate and renounce nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500km.

The Russian president said the treaty was outdated because it prohibited the US and Russia from possessing such weapons while other countries were not restricted in developing them.

?We are forced to think about guarantees of our security,? Mr Putin said.

In 2005, Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defence minister and potential successor to Mr Putin, asked Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence minister, how the Bush administration would respond if Russia quit the INF treaty. US-based experts at the time were divided over whether he was representing the Kremlin, or just the views of the Russian defence ministry.

Mr Putin?s attacked Washington?s missile defence plans, which he suggested could trigger an arms race. ?We can?t be happy with plans to deploy elements of anti-ballistic missile defences in Europe,? he said. He cast doubt on the justification for such defences in Europe, saying no ?problem state? had missiles capable of reaching European soil.

The US has long said its missile defences were aimed not at major nuclear powers, such as Russia or China, but at ?rogue? states with just a handful of missiles.

Speaking in Seville earlier this week, Mr Gates said the rudimentary US missile defence system was not aimed at Russia.

?We have made quite clear that it is not directed at them,? said Mr Gates. ?In India, deputy prime minister [Ivanov] acknowledged that it posed no threat to Russia or its strategic interests.?

Asked whether Washington would be prepared to sign a binding agreement saying the system was not intended as a defence against Russia, Mr Gates responded: ?I don?t know if that would be appropriate.?

Mr Putin said Russia?s decision to deploy new Topol M long range missiles in Russia were to ensure that Moscow?s nuclear deterrent remained potent in the face of more developed US missile defences.

?If you say that your ABM system is not directed at us, our missiles are not aimed at you,? he said.

He said militarisation of space could have unpredictable consequences for world security and was unacceptable. To deal with this, Russia had drafted a treaty to prevent the placing of weapons in space, which it would send to its international partners in the near future, he said.

He was critical of western countries for not ratifying a treaty signed in 1999 to reduce the number of conventional forces in Europe ? and of US construction of so-called forward operating bases in Romania and Bulgaria.

Even in the investment field, Russia was discriminated against, he said. Foreign companies were responsible for the extraction of 26 per cent of Russian oil. But Russian companies faced obstacles when they wanted to invest abroad: the ratio of inward investment by foreign companies in Russia to outward investment by Russian companies abroad was 15:1.

In almost the only conciliatory remarks in his presentation, he described President George W. Bush as a ?decent man?.

?One can do business with him?when I talk to him I assume Russia and the US will never be enemies and I agree with him.?

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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