2.11.2007
Putin's Speech" Back to the Cold War? (news.BBC.co.uk)
By Rob Watson
BBC defence and security correspondent, Munich
The Munich security conference was born in the 1960s - the height of the Cold War. Forty years on, there been talk of a new chill.
Given the tone and content of Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the gathered defence ministers, parliamentarians and pundits, it is not, perhaps, hard to see why.
Warming quickly to his task after only the briefest of greetings, President Putin accused the US of establishing, or trying to establish, a "uni-polar" world.
"What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master," he said.
President Putin continued in a similar vein for some time.
"The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," he said.
It was a formula that, he said, had led to disaster: "Local and regional wars did not get fewer, the number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no kind of restraint - a hyper-inflated use of force."
The US has gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them", Mr Putin said.
(More ... BBC > Europe > News) ¶ 22:10
BBC defence and security correspondent, Munich
The Munich security conference was born in the 1960s - the height of the Cold War. Forty years on, there been talk of a new chill.
Given the tone and content of Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the gathered defence ministers, parliamentarians and pundits, it is not, perhaps, hard to see why.
Warming quickly to his task after only the briefest of greetings, President Putin accused the US of establishing, or trying to establish, a "uni-polar" world.
"What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master," he said.
President Putin continued in a similar vein for some time.
"The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," he said.
It was a formula that, he said, had led to disaster: "Local and regional wars did not get fewer, the number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no kind of restraint - a hyper-inflated use of force."
The US has gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them", Mr Putin said.
(More ... BBC > Europe > News) ¶ 22:10
