Russian President Vladimir Putin is "nurturing dreams of getting back to the times when the Soviet Union was a superpower" and the world is depending on strong American leadership to keep peace, former Hungarian ambassador to the United States András Simonyi said Monday on "America’s Forum" on
Newsmax TV.
"Europe needs a strong, strong leadership from the United States," Simonyi said, telling host J.D. Hayworth that as a former diplomat he preferred not to criticize President Barack Obama personally. "When we are facing the challenges that we face, Russia, Middle East, and all the rest, it is a strong U.S. leadership is called for and you know when there is no clear sign of leadership from America, then the Western world kind of is weakened."
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Hungarians and other European nations worry about Putin’s attempt at a power grab and a return to the era of a predominant Soviet Union, Simonyi said.
"We have a very strong feeling about not wanting to see Soviet times coming back and that's exactly what I see," he said.
"Vladimir Putin is leading that country towards a liberal system. It is already a liberal system. It's a quasi-dictatorship and you know, quasi-dictatorships depend on one personality."
Putin’s aggression in the Ukraine and elsewhere is a way to mask his weakness at home, he noted, "and he's intruding into the north, teasing the Swedish, teasing the Baltic countries, intruding into central Europe, and trying to disrupt the cooperation between Europe and America."
Simonyi hopes the United States' next defense secretary is a courageous, strong leader who will reach out to the allies.
"And he has to make sure that when we need to use force, we will use force, and that the next secretary of defense will be very clearly helping NATO reinforce itself and rebuild itself, reinvent itself and he has to tell the president there is no alternative to the transatlantic relationship," Simonyi said.