"Bush moves troops from Europe to ENERGY RICH Russian border."
It looks like a game between Russian and US hawks to tweak each other in order to maintain a level of mutual fear to justify continued increases in defense spending.
Note the "by End of Decade" timeframe in conjunction with the timeframe for the US troop move:
News Item for February 27, 2004
New Russian Ballistic Missiles by End of Decade
February 27, 2004
Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, senior deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, gave an interview published in the February 26 edition of Russkii Kurier. The interview has been noted by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an anti-missile defense organization supported in large part by its co-chair, Ted Turner. What NTI reports from this interview, and what they do not, are quite illustrative of their bias. A more complete reading of the interview supports the conclusion that Russia’s ballistic missile arsenal remains a threat to the United States, and should properly be seen as an additional reason to deploy a comprehensive defense, rather than a reason not to do so.
Following up on Putin’s remarks a week ago, Baluyevsky spoke of the missiles’ increased maneuverability, designed to penetrate American missile defenses. NTI predictably quotes these, so as to emphasize that Russia will effortlessly make U.S. defenses, to use Putin’s phrase, “useless.”
In response to the question, of whether “Russia is totally opposed to building missile defense systems,” Baluyevsky responded that this was clearly not the case:
No, Russia is not against missile defense. Moreover, Russia is the only country to possess a missile defense system already. Built in accordance with the ABM Treaty of 1972, it is combat-ready… We have only one objective. We advocate missile defense systems that will ensure protection against single launches, not mass strikes. We mean protection from any missiles that may end up in the hands of international terrorists. At present, neither the Russian missile defense system nor the one the United States is building will provide protection against mass strikes. At the same time, we are opposed to missile defense systems that may pose a threat to Russia or devalue its arsenals. I’m talking about the strategic arsenals. Our objective is simple and clear, I think. All our actions, including actions in connection with the appearance of missile defense systems in other countries, aim to maintain Russia’s capacity to do unacceptable damage to an aggressor, no matter where the aggressor is.
As Baluyevsky noted—but NTI did not—Russia continues to maintain and advance the extensive missile defense system of the Soviet Union.
As frequently noted here, Russia wishes the United States to perpetuate the dangerous doctrine of mutually assured destruction vis a vis the former Soviet Union, no less after the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty than when MAD was the law of the land for the thirty years when the treaty was in force. Russia’s wish will be fulfilled if the United States deploys only very limited missile defenses, that is, those which do not protect from the nuclear-armed ballistic missiles of China and Russia.
The recent remarks by Putin and Baluyevsky should be seen as directed at U.S. plans to deploy a limited missile defense system this year, for the purpose of undermininng domestic support for the system within the U.S. The selective reporting by NTI seems to serve the same purpose.
Text from the Interview:
Question: Summing up his visit to the Northern Fleet at a press conference, the president was quite specific: the experiments the command included confirm that we will soon have the latest systems deployed. What kind of weapons are they?
Baluyevsky: The objectives we had were as follows: research and practical experiments for creation and deployment of promising strategic systems and other weaponry. The first area concerns improvement of strategic offensive weapons… We are aiming to design new delivery means for naval missile systems. The second area deals with effectively countering potential missile defense systems. All sorts of systems. The experiment we ran in the exercise confirms the assumptions and preliminary conclusions: that while others are creating missile defense systems, we can come up with weapons that will render them ineffective for the strategic offensive forces of the Russian Federation. The third area concerns a search for new means of deploying strategic offensive forces in combat… The General Staff considers that for a number of financial and economic reasons Russia does not have to build missile defense systems as other countries are doing. This is not our way. First and foremost, because it is much too expensive. Still, we will keep an attentive eye on development of military thinking abroad, on the techniques and technology used in producing these systems.
Question: Shall we conclude that Russia is totally opposed to building missile defense systems?
Baluyevsky: No, Russia is not against missile defense. Moreover, Russia is the only country to possess a missile defense system already. Built in accordance with the ABM Treaty of 1972, it is combat-ready… Within the framework of the declaration Russia and the United States signed in Moscow on May 24, 2001 and the Rome Declaration on relations with NATO, we interact and cooperate with these partners of ours in the sphere of missile defense. We have only one objective. We advocate missile defense systems that will ensure protection against single launches, not mass strikes. We mean protection from any missiles that may end up in the hands of international terrorists. At present, neither the Russian missile defense system nor the one the United States is building will provide protection against mass strikes. At the same time, we are opposed to missile defense systems that may pose a threat to Russia or devalue its arsenals. I’m talking about the strategic arsenals. Our objective is simple and clear, I think. All our actions, including actions in connection with the appearance of missile defense systems in other countries, aim to maintain Russia’s capacity to do unacceptable damage to an aggressor, no matter where the aggressor is. This is what our position on missile defense is about… All the same, I assure you that we will see new missile systems in the Russian strategic nuclear forces before 2010.
Question: In what sense are they new?
Baluyevsky: Everyone knows how ballistic missiles fly these days. I’m talking about an elliptical orbit. Our missiles, however, will be able to maneuver with regard to altitude and course. Such missiles will be able to avoid zones of regional missile defense systems, the zones where they will be tracked. The experiments run within the framework of the command exercises convince us that such missiles can be build and modified to take missile defense systems into account.
Question: Did the military launch interceptors in the course of the exercise?
Baluyevsky: It did. We know now that the air defense systems aboard the Pyotr Veliky (Fort systems) are an adequate weapon against high-altitude and high-velocity ballistic targets.
missilethreat.com
And:
ST. PETERSBURG, August 15 (Itar-Tass) - Russia will “not only maintain fighting efficiency of the strategic nuclear forces but also develop and upgrade them,” Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in an exclusive interview to Itar-Tass and Channel I on Sunday, commenting on his negotiations with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
itar-tass.com
The intensity of the rhetoric is lower than that of the cold war but the underlying zeitgeist is sadly still in place. |
