Medvedev: No new arms race

MOSCOW, July 15 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he won't allow challenges from the United States and NATO to draw the country into a new nuclear arms race.

Medvedev said Tuesday such an arms race would be harmful to Russia's economy and development as a post-Soviet Union state, the Russian information agency Novosti reported Tuesday.

Medvedev delivered a new set of foreign policy guidelines to the country's senior diplomatic corps in Moscow. He said Russia was unalterably opposed to moves by the United States to establish a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and to weaponize outer space, moves that he said could trigger an arms race.

The Russian president also cast doubt on the effectiveness of "military-political blocs" like NATO, which he said weren't capable of addressing the threats and challenges of the modern world. Instead, he proposed instituting broader "network diplomacy" to tackle them, Novosti said.