THE HAGUE, October 14. /TASS/. EU and NATO authorities are losing their sense of proportion, attempting to compensate for their internal weakness with external aggression, Dutch political analyst and former University of Sussex professor Kees van der Pijl told a TASS correspondent.
"We are witnessing NATO and the EU act more and more recklessly. The West is experiencing a profound economic and political crisis, and the current elites are resorting to confrontation as an outlet," the expert said. He emphasized that such steps would eventually undermine the security of Western countries and only accelerate Europe’s political disintegration.
On October 13, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that the alliance was drawing up plans for a potential military conflict with Russia. According to the NATO chief, the alliance is much stronger than Russia, particularly with regard to aircraft. However, Rutte called on NATO Parliamentary Assembly lawmakers to urge their governments to increase military spending.
On June 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed statements that Russia was planning to attack European countries and NATO as lies and nonsense. He said that Western politicians needed to make these statements about an alleged impending Russian attack to mislead the population.