Engdahl: US missile defense 'shield' in Europe is about strategic 'first nuke-strike' against Russia

US Pentagon officials: 'See US, we be like so clever and sneaky, we is on your doorstep now!'

The Cold War has never ended from the US side as their goal has always been to crack Russia, geopolitical analyst and author, F. William Engdahl, told RT, adding that the American anti-missile shield in Europe brings the world close to nuclear holocaust.

RT: Mikhail Gorbachev is celebrated in the West for his role in ending the Cold War. But will the West listen to him now, when he speaks out against Washington's recent actions?

William Engdahl: I don't think Washington will ever listen to him. They went back on their pledge not to expand NATO to the East after we saw it agreed by James Baker III, the Secretary of the State, and the negotiations for the peaceful transfer of East Germany back to Germany as a whole. The rematch by Gorbachev today: he has been conspicuously silent for the last 25 years since he was forced to leave office in Moscow. And I have always had the hunch that he was a genuine Russian patriot and he just had no occasion to speak out because he was vilified inside Russia. In fact he was a victim of what we now see as evidence that clearly indicates there was a CIA coup d'état backing Boris Yeltsin to be the man of Washington so as to be simply dismantle the Russian economy entirely after 1990.

RT: Gorbachev's warning of a new Cold War is alarming. Is there any reason to believe Washington will heed the warnings and scale back its foreign policy ambitions?

WE: I would certainly hope so. The behavior of the European Union, particularly of the Merkel government since the coup d'état in Kiev - and it was nothing less than a coup d'état by the US State Department and the CIA - back on February 21, the policy stance of the German government has been one of the vassal state bending its knees to Washington on every critical issue of pressure. I would hope that they will get a little bit of backbone in Berlin and in other countries in the EU and take a European way rather than dutifully following every diktat from Washington, as they have been doing.

RT: In dealing with Russia, how determined are European governments to act on their own terms without being influenced by their allies in Washington?

WE: I wrote a book called that documents the fact that the Cold war for Washington never ended, not for one nanosecond after the surrender of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Warsaw pact. NATO in fact has done the opposite: they have expanded right up to the borders of Russia in Bulgaria, in Poland, in Romania, the Czech Republic and so forth. They put missile defense and anti-missile installations in those countries that are aimed directly at creating the possibility of an American first nuclear strike against Russia. That definitely brings the world close to nuclear holocaust by miscalculation. So it is an extremely dangerous situation in that the Cold War from the Washington side never ended. They have been pushing every step of the way to simply crack Russia and that hasn't succeeded. Putin drew the line in the sand several times and that is one reason he is so despised by Washington because he doesn't simply buckle under pressure, he defends Russian national interests. I think that is commendable, more states should do that in the world today.