Russia and the United has time to find compromise on European missile defense system

Added: (Mon Nov 28 2011)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that the country is ready to withdraw from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty if the United States and NATO countries do not take into account Russia's opinion in the missile defense program in Europe. He also said that Moscow has long sought in vain legal guarantees from Washington regarding the safety of European missile defense system for Russia.

The head of State stressed that Russia would resort to decisive actions in response to the NATO program. In particular, Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia is ready to strengthen early warning system of missile attacks, cover-up of objects of strategic nuclear forces, equipp strategic ballistic missile complexes with new highly efficient warheads, and post modern shock weapons systems that provide fire destruction of the European component of missile defense on the west and south.

According to international experts, the U.S. and Russia still have time to reach mutual agreement on European missile defense system: it would prevent the onset of a new arms race.

According to the director of Berthold Beitz Center for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) Alexander Rahr, many experts in the West are for the cooperation with Russia on the European missile defense program, but they see it totally in different way.

He noted: “The question about the European missile defense system is not considered as a problem. People in the West believe that America has the right to defend itself and its allies from Iran, Pakistan and other Arab countries. They believe that Russia can not interfere or dictate where to install a missile defense system objects. At the same time the opinion of Russia that it would be dangerous for its safety, is absolutely not taken into account. That surprises me. But the more I was surprised that Europe does not comment Medvedev's statement. They pretend as if nothing happened”.

He also said that the West has little faith in Russia's ability to create their own protection.
"The budget for these purposes the United States over Russia's 10 times. However, I believe that Russia will still upgrade their missile launchers. The question arises of whether America is still in European-brokered agreement with Russia on some cooperation, as a new arms race, in fact, useless. I hope that some arrangement will still be achieved, "- said the expert.

He also said that the West has little faith in Russia's ability to create its own protection system.

The expert said: “The budget of the United States for these purposes is 10 times more than Russian. However, I think that Russia will upgrade their missile launchers. The question is will America in cooperation wirh Europe reach the agreement with Russia on some cooperation, as a new arms race, in fact, useless. I hope that some arrangement will be achieved”.

At the same time, Alexander Rahr said that there is another problem associated with the U.S. and its approach to missile defense system in Europe.

He explained: “We should pay attention to the fact that America doesn’t take into account not only Russia's opinion, it also pays little attention to Europe. If in 2012 the Republicans come to power in America, Russia will get even less attention. America just will make it clear that when number of Russian missiles will increase the number of U.S. facilities will become even more. Then there will be a very dangerous situation”.

According to the research fellow of the Center for Strategic Studies (France) Bruno Gruzel, the Russian president's statement was directed, first of all, to European countries expressed their readiness to host the missile defense of NATO.

He thinks that the main purpose was to weaken support for this, mostly American, project in Europe. However, the expert suggested that the opposite effect could be followed by, if the European states are require to respond to Russia by NATO.

However, the administration of U.S. President after the Dmitri Medvedev’s statement tried to convince the Russian side that the missile defense plan in Europe is not danger for the country. The White House also said that the project would proceed as planned without any limitations and biases.

Senior Fellow for Regional Security Cooperation of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Middle East Michael Elleman expressed the view that the tension over plans for a missile defense system of NATO has been brewing for several years.

He noted: “Presidents Medvedev and Obama are both committed to cooperation on missile defence issues, too many technical, political and institutional barriers have stymied their efforts to create a workable arrangement. It is unclear why Medvedev decided to make this announcement now, since there is still time for both presidents to seek either a solution or compromise”.

According to him, the US is the real driving force behind the NATO missile defence plans and the US position is unlikely to change before the November 2012 Presidential election.

He said: “The Republicans in Congress (and whoever runs against Obama in the election) will surely attack Obama if he were to make any modifications to the current Phased Adaptive Approach. After the US elections, if Obama wins, there is a reasonable change that the US plans could be altered”.

He expressed that if Iran were to verifiably convince the Atomic Energy Agency that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and the Additional Protocols for IAEA inspections were authorized by Tehran, the US and NATO would likely reconsider the need to implement Phases 3 or 4 of the program.

Michael Elleman said: “If this were to happen, most of Russia’s concerns about missile defence would disappear. But again, this scenario would require Obama to win the 2012 election; I believe the Republicans would move forward with all phases of program regardless of Iran”.

He also pointed out that Russia has the legal right to withdraw from the New START , but It would not be in Russia’s interest to do so immediately. He is sure that there is time to negotiate a compromised before Phases 3 or 4 are implemented.

Many analysts have emphasized the timeliness of the speech of president Dmitry Medvedev. According to them, until May 2012 when a final decision on European missile defense system at the NATO summit would be accepted, the U.S. has enough time to ponder the future plans of the program.

The question of the missile defense system has been discussed by Russian and the U.S. leaders since the end of 1960s. NATO joined the conversation in the end of 1990s.

Missile defense system in the U.S. (NMD) is created, according to the U.S. administration, to protect the country against nuclear missile attack of North Korea, Iran and Syria (previously Iraq and Libya were also called).

Missile defense system created by the U.S. includes a control center, stations and early warning satellites tracking the missile launch, station of guidance the interceptor missiles, launchers for derivation interceptors in space for destroying enemy ballistic missiles.

NATO's Strategic Concept of 1999 indicates the need of missile defense against nuclear, biological and chemical threats for all NATO states.

It is expected that NATO states will provide detection tools and combat weapons systems, while NATO will develop the system and will facilitate the integration of all these components.

NATO considers that future cooperation with Russia in the sphere of missile defense may be in building two separate but interacting systems. In particular, cooperation with Russia on missile defense can be through information sharing and possible joint activities with a combination of features and capabilities of NATO missile defense system, available in Russia.

The Russian proposal includes cooperation in the “sectoral” form, where the parties are responsible for ballistic missiles defense of denoted geographic areas. Such a system provides a joint mechanism between Russia and NATO on threat assessment and decision making.

http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/50891-2011