After the Americans declared victory in the Cold War, they became overly self-confident and have now decided to build a brand new empire through the guise of NATO, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said on Friday.
Speaking to RIA Novosti, Gorbachev accused Washington of becoming too big-headed after the fall of the USSR in 1991, suggesting that Washington got carried away with the “triumphalist sentiment in the West.”
“[The US] became too arrogant, self-confident, and big-headed,” he said. “They declared victory in the Cold War. We were pulling the world together out of a confrontation, out of a nuclear race. But, instead, the ‘winners’ decided to build a new empire.”
According to Gorbachev, America’s imperial ambitions are the reason Washington has supported the idea of expanding NATO eastward since 1991. As well as taking aim at the White House, Gorbachev also condemned the Russian leadership for abandoning other attempts to create collective security in Europe.