US and Russia disagree as Russia vows to first.

[Barrack-Obummer]

Russians vow to fire first if missile shield plan proceeds - International - Scotsman.com

Russians vow to fire first if missile shield plan proceeds

Published: 04 May 2012

Gen Nikolai Makarov threatens use of destructive force. Picture: AP

Russia’s top military officer has threatened to carry a pre-emptive strike on Nato missile defence facilities in Eastern Europe if America goes ahead with a plan to build a missile shield.

The comments came at an international conference

attended by senior US and officials of the North Atlantic

Treaty Organisation over the proposed project.

Talks looked set to end in failure yesterday after Russian

defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov warned they were

“close to a dead end”.

Moscow fears its security will be threatened by the missile

plan. Russia’s chief of general staff General Nikolai

Makarov said: “A decision to use destructive force pre-

emptively will be taken if the situation worsens.”

Moscow rejects Washington’s claim the missile system is

solely to deal with any Iranian missile threat and has voiced

fears it could undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

Moscow has proposed running the missile shield jointly

with Nato, but the alliance has rejected that proposal.

Gen Makarov’s statement does not appear to imply an

immediate threat, but aims to put extra pressure on

Washington to agree to Russia’s demands.

The two-day conference in Moscow is the last major Russia-

US meeting about military issues before a Nato summit in

Chicago this month. Russia has not yet said whether it will

send a top-level delegation.

In a lively exchange during a conference side session,

officials talked about the high level of distrust between the

two sides.

“We can’t just reject the distrust that has been around for

decades and become totally different people,” Russian

deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov said. “Why are

they calling on me, on my Russian colleagues, to reject

distrust? Better look at yourselves in the mirror.”

US State Department special envoy Ellen Tauscher said

neither country could afford another arms race.

She said: “It’s going to have to take a political leap of faith

and it’s going to take some trust that we have to borrow,

perhaps, from each other and for each other, but why don’t

we do it for the next generation?”

President Barack Obama’s administration tried to ease

tensions with Russia in 2009 by saying it would revamp a

plan to emphasise shorter-range interceptors. Russia

initially welcomed that but has recently suggested the new

interceptors could threaten its missiles as the US

interceptors are upgraded.

The US-Nato missile defence plans use Aegis radars and

interceptors on ships and a more powerful radar based in

Turkey in the first phase, followed by radar and interceptor

facilities in Romania and Poland.

Russia would not plan any retaliation unless the US goes

through with its plans and takes the third and final step and

deploys defence elements in Poland, Mr Antonov said. That

is estimated to happen no earlier than in 2018.

Russia has just commissioned a radar in Kaliningrad, near

the Polish border, capable of monitoring missile launches

from Europe and the North Atlantic.

Yesterday, at the start of the conference attended by

representatives of about 50 countries, Russia’s Security

Council secretary reiterated an offer to run the missile

shield with Nato. Nikolai Patrushev said this “could

strengthen the security of every single country of the

continent” and “will not deter strategic security.”

Nato deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow,

insisted the missile shield was “not and will not be directed

against Russia” and that Russia’s intercontinental ballistic

missiles were “too fast and too sophisticated” for the system

to intercept.

It seems the the distrust between Moscow and Washington will never change. Here's to the second cold war