With Dmitry Medvedev due to be inaugurated today as Russian president, the Soviet Union's last leader said that the White House's claims of peaceful intentions towards its former superpower rival could no longer be trusted.
Delivering one of his most scathing attacks on the US, Mr Gorbachev told The Daily Telegraph that a US military build-up was under way to contain a resurgent Russia.
From Nato's expansion plans in the former Soviet Union to Washington's proposals for a bigger defence budget and a missile shield in central Europe, the US was deliberately quashing hopes for permanent peace with Russia, Mr Gorbachev said.
punditman says...Gorby makes some good points. And if the Bush administration can't even see eye-to-eye with a guy that even Reagan liked, what does that tell us about their mindsets? And how would the US react if, in this post-cold war era, Russia decided to encircle the US with military bases and a missile shield by cajoling friendly allies?
Hmmm...look what happened last time Russia responded to American encirclement à la Cuba missile crisis (we're lucky we aren't a radically-reduced population of radioactive mutants, foraging to survive on a glowing landscape.)
