LONDON (AFP) - The United States risks starting a new Cold War by proposing to build a missile shield in central and eastern Europe, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said in comments published here Wednesday.

Washington claims that the anti-missile system for Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed exclusively at countering the threat from so-called "rogue states" like Iran, but Gorbachev said those assertions could not be trusted.

Instead he said the military build-up -- plus the eastward expansion of NATO into Russia's traditional sphere of influence -- was aimed at containing a resurgent Russia, where Dmitry Medvedev is inaugurated as president Wednesday.

"The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently," he told the Daily Telegraph in an interview conducted in Paris. "Every US president has to have a war."

Ex-president Vladimir Putin, who will be Medvedev's prime minister, possibly with a role in directing Russian foreign policy, was "not going to start a war with the United States or any other country for that matter", he added.

"Yet we see the United States approving a military budget and the defence secretary pledging to strengthen conventional forces because of the possibility of a war with China or Russia," he said.
"I sometimes have a feeling that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world."

Gorbachev's position stands at odds with recent comments by the Kremlin. It initially held the same view but has significantly softened opposition and now appears to be focusing on getting security guarantees.

The former president said that "erecting elements of missile defence is taking the arms race to the next level. It is a very dangerous step".

"The American's promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises?

"It shows they cannot be trusted," he said, adding that US government policy was being driven by the "military-industrial complex".