The United States and Europe need Russia, particularly when it comes to dealing with major security challenges, since Moscow could well be "the best fighter of international terrorism" in the world, but Washington hardliners and NATO officials do not want to work with Moscow, Professor Stephen F. Cohen asserted on The John Batchelor Show.

"I've been arguing since the 1990s that the road to American national security still runs through Moscow. But instead we have waged a Cold War against Russia," he noted.

Cohen has long urged the US leadership to reconsider the fundamentals of US foreign policy and adopt its strategies to the changing world order, what he referred to as "the new reality," instead of fomenting discord with a country that has never been its adversary. International terrorism is one of the major challenges that have shaped this new reality.

Since the 9/11 attacks, terrorist organizations have increased their capacity to carry out assaults in major cities throughout the world, including New York, London, Moscow, Paris, Madrid, Istanbul, etc., killing scores if not hundreds, Cohen observed. The post-Cold War world order "is breaking down," while the birth of the new one has been "very painful and dangerous."

However, "the Western leaders are doing nothing about this except making it worse," Cohen asserted, referring primarily to Washington and to a lesser extent NATO. "Our notion of a solution since 9/11 has been to invade countries, attack them with planes or drones and carry out regime change."

The United States could have joined forces with Russia , since Moscow has the experience and the will to deal with terrorists within its own borders and beyond . But this cooperation has been episodic at best.

In late 2015, French President Francois Hollande "startled the world" following the attacks in Paris on November 13 when he urged to create a grand anti-Daesh coalition that would include both the US and Russia, Cohen recalled. "Some countries agreed, but Washington did not," he added.

© AFP 2020 / Bertrand Guay A photo taken on November 17, 2015 in Paris shows the Eiffel Tower illuminated with the colors of the French national flag in tribute to the victims of the November 13 Paris terror attacks.

Many European countries understand the benefits of working with Russia.

"Europe needs Moscow terribly – economically, politically, socially in terms of the migration problem and militarily in the fight against terrorism. Russia, I guess you could debate this, might be the best fighter of international terrorism because it has had so much experience," Cohen explained. "Russia is needed."

The professor added that there was only one reason why Europe did not remove sanctions imposed on Moscow following the outbreak of the civil war in Ukraine. The United States does not want this to happen. Washington says "Don't do it and if you do it we will punish Europe," the analyst observed.