Russia military might trounces that of US, NATO: Analyst

The US and its NATO allies are actively seeking a military conflict with Russia, despite being in a weaker position in terms of military power, says a political analyst in London.

Rodney Shakespeare made the comments while discussing reports about the UK’s plans to send troops and heavy weaponry to the Baltic States bordering with Russia, in order to reinforce NATO’s military buildup there.

Russia and NATO have been locked in a deepening dispute since they cut all practical cooperation in 2014. The military alliance accuses Russia of backing militias in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow, however, denies the allegation, arguing that the Western military pact is using the years-long conflict in Ukraine as an excuse to move closer to its borders.

“The ultimate reason why the NATO’s aggression, is that it is a military arm of what is an expanding global financial system which is trembling maybe on the point of collapse and that is why now they are pushing military, playing the foreign card trying to find someone to blame,” Shakespeare told Press TV on Sunday.

The Ukraine crisis is a driving source behind the rising “Western aggression” against Russia, Shakespeare argued, warning that the years-long conflict has given way to “a very dangerous situation.”

Moscow-Kiev ties have been in tatters since the Crimean Peninsula joined Russia in a referendum in March 2014.

Ukraine has also been carrying out a military crackdown on pro-Russian forces fighting for greater autonomy in the east.

According to the United Nations, over 9,000 people have lost their lives and some 20,000 have been injured in the conflict.

Shakespeare said that with its continuous military expansion towards Russian borders, the West was underestimating Moscow’s military might.

“So the situation, as it has developed now, is increasingly looking like a deliberate attempt by NATO to at least raise attentions to keep its own population under control, but in a situation where Russia militarily is probably more capable than even what the West might be; so that the West/NATO are taking a big risk,” he explained.

The academic also spoke of a hypothetical situation where Russia was deploying forces on the American border.

“Will the Americans tolerate it? Will the West tolerate it? Of course they would not,” he asserted.

Concluding his remarks, Shakespeare said that keeping the world in a continuous “state of tension” was what the Western military-industrial complex wanted as it thrives on military conflicts. That is why he said Washington wishes "to create” a conflict with Russia.  

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