Russia's General Staff are concerned over the US plans to expand its missile defense system to Eastern Europe. According to the Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov, these plans are incompatible with disarmament. We have more details from Yevgeny Kryshkin.
The US missile defense plans for Europe were disclosed by Under Secretary of State for International Security Ellen Tauscher. As she addressed a disarmament conference on Wednesday Mrs.Tauscher said by 2011 the United States is to deploy ships with "Aegis" multi-purpose batteries and "SM-3" interceptor missiles in the Mediterranean, by 2015 it is to deploy "SM-3" missiles in Romania, and by 2018 - in Poland.
All this takes place as Moscow and Washington get ready to sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama arranged to slash carriers from 1600 to 500-1100, and the number of nuclear warheads should not exceed 1500-1675. Given the situation, any military preparations make no sense. Nevertheless, Washington just won't give up. Pavel Zolotarev, the deputy director of the Institute of US and Canada, comments.
"The US efforts to build up missile defense run counter to its earlier statements that they should be joint ones, he says. As a result, instead of a missile defense system in Europe built jointly with Russia, there will appear a NATO air defense shield, and this will make division lines in Europe yet more pronounced".
Even though the United States claims that a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is designed to guarantee protection against missile threats from the Middle East, Iran in particular, there weighty grounds to believe that it serves other purposes. Ellen Tauscher emphasized that in the future Washington plans to replace the deployed anti-missiles with more advanced ones, which would protect both against medium and small-range missiles and against inter-continental ballistic missiles. That means the missile defense facilities close to the Russian borders will be strengthened and upgraded, and underlying the US missile defense plans for Europe is a striving for military supremacy.
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