MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Sunday (Dec 7) welcomed US President Donald Trump’s move to stop calling Russia a direct threat and said his new national security strategy, which portrays European powers as in decline, largely accorded with Russia’s own perceptions.
The US National Security Strategy described Trump’s vision as one of “flexible realism” and argued that the US should revive the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which declared the Western Hemisphere to be Washington’s zone of influence.
The strategy, signed by Trump, also warned that Europe faces “civilizational erasure”, that it was a “core” US interest to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, and that Washington wanted to reestablish strategic stability with Russia.
“The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television reporter Pavel Zarubin when asked about the new US strategy.
Asked about the pledge in the US document to end “the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance”, Peskov said it was encouraging.
But Peskov also cautioned that what he said was the US “deep state” saw the world differently to Trump, who has used the term to refer to an allegedly entrenched network of US officials who seek to undermine those who challenge the status quo, including Trump himself.
Source: CNA
