Gorbachev: US needs "perestroika" of its own

Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says that Washington must stop giving orders and should reconstruct its financial and political system.

On Thursday, while on a visit to the offices of the British Evening Standard newspaper, recently taken over by Russian owners, Gorbachev said, "One day (US) will have to stop giving orders and stop trying to tell the whole world how it should act."

Gorbachev added that the US now needed perestroika of its own, 20 years after the process in the Soviet bloc.

Perestroika is the Russian term (now used in English) for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is 'restructuring', referring to the restructuring of the Soviet economy.

Perestroika resulted in the fall of communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as the end of the Cold War.

"We need to find a new model of capitalism, taking the best of the old model and the best of socialism," Gorbachev told the staff of the Evening Standard.

"From capitalism, it must take incentives and stimulus and from socialism, more equality and social justice," Gorbachev added.

Commenting on the subject of militarization, Gorbachev added, "Even if we got rid of every nuclear weapon in the world, 75 percent of the world's weapons left over would be in the USA. Therefore, we have to control the militarization of the world, and not just nuclear weapons."