Earlier this week, a new component of the US missile defense shield in Europe was activated at the Deveselu military base, in Romania. The new $800-million facility includes an Aegis Ashore missile defense system, the land version of the ship-based Aegis system. The site is one of the first major European components of the US global missile shield.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the system could be used to launch cruise missiles, thus violating the 1987 INF Treaty between Washington and Moscow. The ministry also criticized the West for a very one-sided approach to the issue of missile defense.
According to Robinson, the reason for such an approach is that the US government is "controlled by the military industrial complex" which makes lots of money on defense contracts.
"There was a fantastic opportunity between [Mikhail] Gorbachev and the first President [George H. W.] Bush to come up with some kind of an agreement as Germany reunified. Russia could have been accepted into NATO and together they could have built a common defense against any perceived threats that come from outside. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, because that is not what the American administration wants," the journalist told RT.
Moreover, he said that the NATO missile shield in Europe poses a threat to European countries too.
"It was only a few years ago that there were large demonstrations in the Czech Republic for precisely this reason that the US was proposing to build a radar base in the Czech Republic, and people felt that it was going to be a threat in the event of any conflict between Russia and NATO," he suggested.
"The people in Europe, the people living near this base in Romania and near this new proposed base in Poland should very rightly feel not secured by these developments, but very much threatened by what’s happening around them," the journalist concluded.
