US playing Cold War rhetoric against Russia: Analyst

Deploying arms in various parts of Europe, particularly in NATO member states, is a worn-out strategy against Russia that belongs to the Cold War era, says a former Pentagon official.

Michael Maloof made the comments when Press TV interviewed him about the declared decision by the Pentagon to send tanks and heavy artillery for US Marines that are based in Bulgaria.

“In terms of justification, the US is just playing to Cold War rhetoric,” Maloof said on Tuesday.

He called on the US to instead focus on common threats such as Daesh (ISIL) Takfiri group and said, “We should be working with Moscow, we shouldn’t be getting back into this Cold War mentality.”

“We still see it [the Cold War mentality] within the Obama administration the way they conduct themselves. They have got the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying that Russia is the greatest threat. Well, it is only the greatest threat because we are provocating,” he maintained.

In a report that was released by the Pentagon a few weeks ago, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey had called Russia and China as a threat to US security interests.

"Russia's military actions are undermining regional security directly and through proxy forces," the report stated.

In March, a convoy of 120 US military vehicles paraded through cities and towns of six former Moscow allies in Eastern Europe.

Maloof said that by employing this strategy, Washington is placating NATO members because they are not able to properly defend themselves against Russia, although it does not seem to be in Moscow’s interests to threaten those countries at all.

“It is just a needless expenditure of money and arms and it is costing us constantly the money that we don’t even have to move all this equipment around,” the analyst noted.

“It only brings on what we would call a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said, adding “if you are going to prepare for an eventual conflict, ultimately you are going to have it because one side will provocate more than the other.”

Russia has warned Washington about its military buildup near Russia borders, threatening to hit back with a similar response.

"If US heavy hardware, including tanks, artillery systems, or other fighting vehicles does appear in some Eastern European and Baltic countries, this would mark the Pentagon and NATO's most aggressive step since the Cold War time of the past century,” said Army General Yury Yakubov, a coordinator from the Russian Defense Ministry’s general inspectors directorate.

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