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The Kremlin ordered a sharp increase in defence spending today but insisted that Russia was not on a path to war with the United States.Alexander Yakovenko, the Deputy Foreign Minister, ruled out military conflict with Russia's former Cold War adversary. He also called on the European Union, rather than Nato, to act as guarantors of Georgia's security after last month's war.“Regarding the possibility of war between the United States and Russia, this possibility is ruled out,”Mr Yakovenko told reporters in Moscow.His remarks came as President Dmitri Medvedev called for a full-scale overhaul of the international security system, which he described as "bankrupt".Mr Medvedev proposed a new pan-European security treaty shortly after he became President in May, but it received only lukewarm support among Nato members. He taunted Nato over its failings and said that the Georgia crisis showed the importance of his idea."The likelihood that a major European treaty will be signed after the events in the Caucasus is increasingly growing. That is now clear even to those who were telling me that there was no need for that and Nato will secure everything," Mr Medvedev told leaders of non-governmental groups at a meeting in the Kremlin."What has Nato decided? What has it secured? It only provoked a conflict, nothing else."The President spoke as the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, passed a 25 per cent increase in defence spending next year from $40 billion to $50 billion. Russia's three-year budget forecast includes further increases to $54.5 billion in 2010 and to $58 billion by 2011.However, Russia's military budget remains barely a tenth of the $480 billion spent by the US Pentagon this year. Mr Medvedev told defence chiefs last week that the Georgian war showed that Russia had to modernise its military as "one of our top priorities".Booming oil revenues allowed his predecessor Vladimir Putin to quadruple defence spending, with $189 billion earmarked to upgrade army and navy equipment by 2015.Mr Medvedev insisted yesterday that Russia was not returning to an isolated, authoritarian past. He said that it sought "full-fledged dialogue" with the West, adding: "We aren't trying to teach anyone, we want our views to be heard".Mr Medvedev declared as recently as May that Russia objected to attempts to "interfere in other states' affairs, not to mention attempts to revise borders". His recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states after the Georgian conflict has rewritten the rule-book, however.Many in the West fear that a newly assertive Russia will seek to stir up separatism in Ukraine as a means of wrecking its Nato ambitions. Nato is due to consider membership applications from Ukraine and Georgia in December.Though Russia's invasion of Georgia was its first military incursion into another country since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the once feared Red Army is still a shadow of its former self.It has shrunk dramatically since the Soviet collapse, from 4 million men to Russia's 1.1 million now. Despite its crushing victory, military analysts said that Russia's army lacked modern precision weapons and satellite navigation.The Russian Navy announced that it will introduce a new long-range ballistic nuclear missile on submarines next year. The Bulava-M has been developed for a fleet of new strategic nuclear submarines, the Borey-class Project 955.The first of seven vessels, costing $890 million each, is currently undergoing sea trials and will be equipped with 16 Bulava missiles, each with up to 10 nuclear warheads and a range of 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles).As in the days of Noah....
