17 October 2011
Russia Readying Cheap, "Effective" Answer to NATO Missile Shield: Official
Global Security Newswire

Russia is readying a relatively inexpensive yet effective military and technological answer to the United States' ongoing efforts to establish a missile shield in Europe, Interfax reported on Friday (see GSN, Oct. 11).

"We already have a general understanding of what should be done," a senior Kremlin official said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper. "Our response will not cost us much, but it will be extremely effective."

The newspaper said the Obama administration has formally rejected Moscow's repeated requests to provide a legally enforceable pledge that U.S. missile interceptors deployed in Europe would not be aimed at Russia's long-range strategic weapons. Russia has demanded such an agreement as part of negotiations over its potential participation in the missile shield.

The United States intends through 2020 to deploy increasingly capable land- and sea-based missile interceptors around Europe as a stated hedge against a potential ballistic missile attack from the Middle East. That "phased adaptive approach" is to form the backbone of a wider NATO effort to coordinate and augment individual member nations' antimissile programs.

Washington has announced deals under which Romania, Poland, Spain and Turkey would host missile defense elements on their territories.

"Americans' intentions are getting more obvious: they plan to build a missile defense system, but they are not going to heed our opinion," the Kremlin source said.

Even if Washington changed course on the legal pledge, "it would not suit us because these guarantees will be valid only five years or so, and the next U.S. president after Obama could very well abandon them" (Interfax I, Oct. 14).

A meeting between officials led by by U.S. Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov last week ended without resolving significant issues in the missile shield dispute, Interfax reported.

Though the negotiating teams held in-depth talks about a variety of missile defense matters, including a "step-by-step adaptive approach" for establishing a European antimissile system, key points of contention were left unresolved, the Russian Foreign Ministry said (Interfax II, Oct. 13).