MUNICH, Germany, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Ahead of a large security conference in Germany, Russia and the United States are on a confrontation course reminiscent of the Cold War era.
Moscow has been furious about Washington's plans to place its multi-billion-dollar missile defense system on Polish and Czech territory. Washington claims the missiles are to intercept rockets from Iran and North Korea, but Moscow feels it has moved into the gridlock of the Americans.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov called the plan an "unfriendly signal."
"Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, apparently there are conditions to be established for the continent to be once again helpless without American protection and an increased military presence of the Americans," he wrote in a commentary in Friday's Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, on the same day that a high-ranking security conference kicks off in the Bavarian city.
Ivanov added the moved forced Russia to take cheap asymmetrical countermeasures, like stationing 50 Topol-M rockets that would be able to overcome the U.S. missile system.
Harsh backfire came from U.S. Senator John McCain, who accused Russia of exerting imperialistic influence on its neighboring states.
The verbal exchange clouds the 43rd edition of the Munich Conference on Security Policy, a top level meeting that will draw 250 officials from 40 nations, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
