MOSCOW, April 25 (UPI) -- NATO and the NATO-Russia Council are discussing the issue of anti-ballistic missile systems in Brussels this week.
Both parties are interested in this discussion. The old NATO members are unhappy that the United States is deploying components of its ABM system on the territory of new members without consulting the European Union or NATO. After Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, said that the United States was ready to start consultations with Russia on the ABM systems, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that European nations and the Commonwealth of Independent States should jointly estimate the nuclear missile threat, and that NATO should resume its ABM dialogue.
Russia will probably propose that Europe come back to the joint development of non-strategic or theater missile defenses. A great deal was done in this field, but all efforts were discontinued when the United States announced its plan to bring components of its ABM system to Europe. The Americans are openly saying that any future NATO missile defense system will be tailored to the U.S. ABM system, although only several months ago the NATO leaders swore that they had nothing to do with this.
The U.S. desire to occupy Russia's place in NATO's missile defense was confirmed by Czech Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanova's imprudent statement to the effect that the U.S. radar that would be deployed 40 miles to the southwest of Prague would become part of NATO's missile defenses. "Washington is developing a system for countering intercontinental ballistic missiles), while Europe has focused on medium- and short-range systems," she said. "Both systems should become operational in 2012. They will be placed under NATO command and become part of its military structure."
The Americans may offer to supply Russia with information received by the radar it is going to deploy in Europe and protect with its ABM shield part of Russia's territory that is not covered by its own missile defenses. But Russian military analysts call these proposals a diversion maneuver because the ground-based radars and satellites of the Russian early warning system will give a full report on a missile launch within minutes.
What is not clear is why the European Union and NATO need anti-ballistic missile defense at all, regardless of whether Russia or America takes part. Iran, not to mention North Korea, does not have enough missiles of the right class to reach Europe and overcome its current air defense system. If the Americans compel the Europeans to make a financial contribution to the ABM project, the European Union will have less money for other, more important defense systems. Perhaps that is what Washington is trying to achieve?
It is also abundantly clear that the United States will control the ABM system simply for lack of time to consult Europe about a decision to use it. When every second matters, a system should be automatic. This is exactly why the Europeans have backed out of the U.S. and Russian proposals and decided to upgrade their own air defense systems to the level of non-strategic missile defense that they will control themselves.
To sum up, there are not many opportunities for military-technical cooperation in such a sensitive sphere as ABM. The military diplomatic sphere offers more opportunities.
In 2000, Russia and the United States signed a memorandum on setting up a joint center in the town of Korolev near Moscow to exchange information on missile launches from early warning systems. But this was not done, and this year the United States gave up the project altogether. If the Americans want to protect Europe against Iranian missiles so much, why don't they want to use the information received by Daryal, a Russian radar that is part of the missile warning system in Gabala, Azerbaijan? Daryal is the world's most powerful radar and monitors air space to the range of more than 3,000 miles -- up to the Indian Ocean. The Sevastopol-based Dnepr radar also covers the potential flight path of Iranian missiles bound for Europe.
Next fall, Russia and NATO are going to hold the first field exercises involving the use of troops and missiles in order to improve the interoperability of non-strategic missile defenses in the European theater. So Russia has some proposals for negotiations.
If NATO -- primarily the United States -- does not want to consider Russia's concern about the construction near its western border of missile silos that could contain both ABM components and first-strike missiles, Moscow can take other asymmetrical military and diplomatic steps.
Alexander Pikayev, head of the disarmament and conflict settlement department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that Russia would not forget about its partners in Latin America. By the way, Russian weapons have become quite popular not only in Venezuela lately. There were precedents in history when military-technical cooperation led to the emergence of strategic alliances capable of drastically changing the plans of the Pentagon and U.S. State Department.
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(Nikolai Khorunzhy is an independent Russian strategic systems expert writing for RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
