NATO's policy of expanding its European presence is devised in Washington, which then forces its will on European leaders, Diana Johnstone, a Paris-based political writer specializing on European politics and Western foreign policy, told Radio Sputnik.
"NATO is relentlessly pursuing its own fictional version of the world. It speaks of some separate world where Russia is a threat and they have to respond to it. None of this has anything to do with either the reality of Russia behavior, or with the people of European countries."
"There is very little if any media coverage of this sort of thing, these very dangerous policies that could lead to war are being made over the heads of the Europeans with frankly orders coming from Washington."
Johnstone cited NATO interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria as the major causes of the current refugee and migration crisis, as well as problems in the region caused by Turkey, another NATO member.
"You cause disaster and then you come in to do something about it. I cannot believe in anything beneficial from NATO."
"I'm very suspicious when NATO says it's going to go anywhere to do anything, because usually it comes out doing something even worse than it said it was going to do."
"She's a notorious neocon" and her visit to Europe serves several purposes, including the sale of weapons to form part of a "military Keynesianism" for Europe that is also proposed by George Soros, Johnstone said.
"Of course spending money on military buildup means in fact purchasing American weapons in order to have them all fit together, so this is also a sales pitch for European countries to buy military equipment and hardware to threaten Russian with it."
"Of course it's not the Cold War but it's something even worse because it’s a military buildup against Russia which has no ideological pretext as it did when Russia was communist, now it's simply based on false information or distortions."
