The Media Mirror - 23.06.07
Russian newspapers on Saturday gave prominence to Russian response to the U.S. missile defence, the idea of global state and survey defining the most feared country.
ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA weekly quotes a survey by Harris Interactive saying that the United States is the most feared country in the world, in the sense of the potential threat it presents to other nations. At least, according to the survey they think that way in Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Italy and the U.S. itself.
Second place is firmly held by China, third – by Iran, fourth – by Iraq. North Korea is the fifth.
Russia is in the sixth place. It is feared by 8% of Germans and only 3% of the U.S. citizens.
PROFILE offers a story devoted to the philosophy of Russia’s asymmetric response to the U.S. missile defence. The article, entitled ‘Yield, in order to win’, insists that the only nation in the world that possesses a nuclear deterrent capable of nullifying the effect of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is Russia. Therefore, Russia, not Iran, North Korea or even China, is the only nation that can challenge the might of the sole superpower of our time. That means that the missile defence system, even intended against someone else, will not be deployed without the thought about Russia in the back of the mind. And for Russia, unlike the Soviet Union, this is not a matter of competition of the two systems, but a matter of survival.
The asymmetric response, says the article, can be achieved by more warheads to a missile and by missiles with a better penetration ability, which is already the case with the latest Russian ballistic missiles. However, to prevent the development of better counter-measures by the U.S., Russia may opt for an absolutely non-nuclear, and even non-military pre-emptive strike in the sphere of finance: Russia may attack the dollar instead of the missile silos. In that case the money that hadn’t been wasted on an arms race will become a mighty weapon in its own right.
PROFILE also publishes a piece of opinion on the perspectives of a global state. Dr Sergey Lopatnikov writes that the idea of a global state, so close to the hearts of the neo-conservatives, is very similar to the view of the future developed by the communists of the past.
He also says there cannot be blind face in the current situation.
“We leave the premises of fact and enter the premises of faith. There cannot be such thing as blind faith in protecting national interest. Russia doesn’t have such faith in the U.S., and so it is concerned about the new missile defence system so much,” Sergey Lopatnikov notes.
