In case of her election as U.S. president, Clinton to carry out pragmatic line towards Russia - McFaul
WASHINGTON. Nov 7 (Interfax) - United States Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton understands that there cannot be a war between Russia and the U.S. and is not interested in a confrontation with Moscow, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who is considered Clinton's close associate, said.
Commenting in an interview with Interfax on the statements of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump alleging that relations with Russia may drastically worsen if Clinton is elected, McFaul said: "I think the claim that the fear-mongering that Trump himself and Trump supports say to scare American voters that Secretary Clinton is going to start a war with Russia is completely absurd, completely has nothing to do with the reality. Only a total crazy person would start a war with Russia."
He said that Clinton understands that there will be no war between the U.S. and Russia, "she is not crazy."
"It is a much more simple fact that Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, except for maybe the U.S., and mutual assured destruction still exists," he said. McFaul recalled that this reality has existed for decades and guaranteed that there would never be a direct military conflict between the U.S. and Russia.
In addition to that, he said, "I personally don't think that Secretary Clinton supports a hard line against Russia."
"I think she takes a very pragmatic approach to defend America's national interests and security and economic interests of our allies," McFaul said.
McFaul is confident that a goal is of primary importance for Clinton when developing a policy, and only afterwards will she determine a strategy regarding a certain country, including Russia.
"She's not going to become president to say "it is my goal to improve relations with Russia". What is she's going to do instead is she is going to say that "it is my goal with Russia to accomplish policy items A, B and C." And then she is going to decide which strategy, which instrument of policy [will achieve that]. Sometimes it will be engagement and sometimes [it will] be containment," he said.