Russia’s Deployment Threat
November 6th, 2008
President-Elect Barack Obama will have to hit the ground running in January. Russia is moving full steam ahead on its plan to put short-range ballistic missiles on its western border around Kaliningrad if the U.S. installs missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev blamed Russia’s economic troubles on the U.S. and described what his country would do should the U.S. build bases in Europe. Russia would deploy mobile Iskander missiles to neutralize what it perceives as a threat.
“The Russians know full well that our European missile defense system is not capable of defeating their enormous ballistic missile arsenal,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained. “Rather, it is meant to counter Iran’s growing missile threat. And we have bent over backwards to invite the Russians to partner with us to defeat this common threat.”
The missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic will not be aimed at Russia, but Russia obviously isn’t buying the “just a defense” defense. In the meantime, NATO is concerned about the developments. Spokesman Robert Pszczel told the AFP that if true, “it would raise serious worries concerning the conformity with existing arms control arrangements which are important for European security…Moreover, placing of these Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region would not help NATO and Russia to improve their relationship.”
After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and tensions eased between the East and West, there was hope that animosity between the two would become a distant memory. Unfortunately, a second Cold War has begun.
(Sources: New York Times and AFP)
According to Syria’s state news agency, the answer is no. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is denying that he discussed acquiring a missile defense system with Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev.