Putin warns against uncontrolled, disastrous competition by states

SOCHI, October 22. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against uncontrolled competition by states, which may prove disastrous for the whole world and trigger another spiral of the arms race. He was speaking at a meeting of the Valdai discussion club in Sochi on Thursday. He said that "all states will always have their own, sometimes multi-vectored interests, and world history is a history of competition by states and their alliances." "To my mind this is absolutely natural. It is most important to ensure such competition should stay within certain political, legal and moral bounds. Otherwise rivalry and clashes of interests will be fraught with acute crises and dramatic disruptions," Putin said. Putin recalled that "attempts to push ahead with the unilateral domination model at any cost have thrown the system of international law and global control off balance." "That means that there is a risk that competition - political, economic and military - may go out of control," he said. For the sphere of international security this uncontrolled competition may spell an upsurge in local conflicts, in particular, in border regions, where the interests of major powers and blocks clash. "Also, this may bring about a decline of the WMD non-proliferation system, which I see as very dangerous. As a result there would follow another spiral of the arms race," Putin said. Read more