A Paris-based journalist says NATO leaders invited Russia into their missile system program just to “neutralize” it, stressing that problems between Russia and NATO are not yet solved.

“Part of the policy is to make it [Russia] subservient to NATO in some ways by involving it in this [missile system program],” Diana Johnstone told Press TV.

During a meeting in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon on Saturday, Russia agreed to cooperate with NATO on a missile system and other security issues, an agreement which is considered as a step toward putting aside the problems from the Cold War era.

Commenting on the decision, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow’s strained relations with the bloc have been overcome.

The reality on the ground, however, testifies to the fact that NATO still considers Russia as a threat, although the country was not proclaimed as an enemy in the recent conference, Johnstone said.

“Its [NATO] spokesperson is saying the Ukraine must belong to NATO; it’s doing military maneuvers in the Arctic clearly and explicitly directed against possible clashes with Russia over natural resources if the Arctic ice cap melts. So all these actions speak to my mind much louder than the words in Lisbon,” she added.

Johnstone added that hundreds of billions of dollars are being raised to spend on the missile system because “the real dynamic of NATO is the US military industrial complex and its necessity to keep making weapons, selling weapons, getting other people to buy the weapons.”

“[The US] has to keep a mentality or ideology of threats all over the world in order to sell its weapons and the missile shield is one of these,” Johnstone added.

The leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states met in Lisbon on November 19-20 to formulate the organization’s strategy for the next decade.

The leaders agreed on a new strategic concept which commits all members to counter so-called new threats.