WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- An editorial in a major Moscow newspaper Wednesday suggests the Kremlin may be preparing to step up its retaliatory systems capable of destroying U.S. anti-ballistic missile systems in Europe with pre-emptive strikes.
The Bush administration has repeatedly insisted that the ABM systems to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles that it is developing are not designed to neutralize the thermonuclear deterrent capabilities of Russia's formidable Strategic Missile Forces. There is no possibility within the foreseeable future that U.S. ABM systems could reach that level. Currently, there are only around 20 Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors, or GBIs, deployed around Fort Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.. But Russia still has around 2,400 nuclear warheads on its missiles, and it is upgrading its Topol-M ICBM, the main, mobile and land-based ICBM in its strategic arsenal, to be capable of carrying multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs like the formidable old SS-18 Satan already does.
Russian policymakers, of course, have always known that. And the editorial Wednesday in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, reprinted by RIA Novosti, acknowledged this fact.
"Russia's calm reaction to Washington's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile -- ABM -- Treaty and deployment of anti-missile systems in Alaska created the illusion that the United States could continue to make unilateral decisions disregarding the security interests of other states," it said.
"Russian experts say that the United States is unable to build up its ABM capability for technical reasons, mainly because of a lack of reliable ABMs," the editorial continued.
However, the Komsomolskaya Pravda editorial continued with comments that gave a fascinating insight into the why many Russian analysts interpret the Bush administration's anti-ballistic missile system policies.
"Although Washington announced it had carried out successful trials of such missiles, this was for political reasons and led the way for building the silos for ABMs in Europe.
"The United States' practical goal is to complete the technological cycle: build the silos, load the missiles, monitor their operation and include the objects in the global control system," the editorial said.
"After improving the construction technology by building the sites in Poland, the United States will have the technical capability to commission one launch site per year. In this scenario, soon there will not be one launch site with 10 anti-missiles close to the Russian borders, but dozens of them spread across Europe," it continued.
"This would allow the United States to establish several European elements of the system designed to protect its national territory from missiles launched from any country," the editorial argued.
In fact, there are many reasons to reject this argument. First, the Bush administration and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency currently have no plans whatsoever to build a second ABM base anywhere in Europe, let alone dozens.
Second, even if they did, the Democrats who now control both houses of Congress would be very unlikely to approve the funding for a second, let alone dozens more ABM bases in Europe. As it is, they have significantly cut the funding as yet approved to build the first base in Poland.
Third, the Bush administration has little more than a year left in office before it must make way for the next president. That certainly would not give it sufficient time to approve the dozens of bases that Komsomolskaya Pravda warned against.
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(Next: What Russia may do)
