Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

The Washington Post
By Mari Yamaguchi
December 14, 2010

Japan’s government agreed Tuesday to continue contributing $2.2 billion a year toward the cost of stationing American troops in the country.

Under the agreement with the United States, Japan’s share will remain at the current 188 billion yen ($2.2 billion) through March 2016. The current pact expires next March. …

The flash point in the debate is the southern island of Okinawa, where most of the nearly 100 U.S. facilities in Japan are located. The pending relocation of an unpopular U.S. Marine base on the island has strained relations between the two countries.

Japanese living near U.S. military facilities have long complained about aircraft noise and crime. …

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121401711.html

Xinhua
December 9, 2010

President Barack Obama on Wednesday committed the United States to basing land-based SM-3 interceptors in Poland in the 2018 timeframe as part of its NATO- wide missile defense system.

In a joint statement after meeting with visiting Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski at the White House, Obama expressed his gratitude for the commitment by the Polish government to host this system, saying Poland’s commitment is “an extremely valuable contribution to the development of a NATO missile defense capability.”

At a November summit in Lisbon, Portugal, NATO’s 28 member states agreed to develop “the capability to defend our populations and territories against ballistic missile attack as a core element of our collective defense.”

The Phased Adaptive Approach to European missile defense, unveiled by Obama in September 2009 to replace the Bush-era controversial missile defense shield program in the Czech Republic and Poland, will be deployed in four stages from next year until 2020 and would be capable of intercepting long-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Under the plan, U.S. interceptor missiles and radar will be stationed in Europe, for which NATO member states have to invest 200 million euros (280 million dollars) to link their existing anti-missile systems to the U.S. system. …

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-12/09/c_13641045.htm

The Hankyoreh
By Kwon Tae-ho
December 8, 2010

During a tripartite meeting, S.Korea and Japan showed more support for a U.S. presence into Northeast Asia affairs

A key Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) official reported Tuesday that South Korea and the United States have agreed to bomb North Korea using aircraft if North Korea launches additional provocations.

“The two countries agreed to the plan of action after the Yeonpyeong Island artillery attack by North Korea, and that the United States agreed that South Korea should strongly respond to additional provocations in self-defense,” said the official. “This means that when South Korea is attacked, it would actively respond relying not only on weapons in the area, but also mobilizing air power.”

During a meeting of the South Korean, U.S. and Japanese foreign ministers in Washington on Sunday, the U.S. and Japanese foreign ministers reportedly did not raise objections to South Korea’s plan to strongly respond militarily should North Korea commit additional provocations.

A high-ranking South Korean government official met with South Korean correspondents in Washington on Sunday and said, “South Korea has the right to respond in this manner, since it constitutes a response to a North Korean attack rather than a preemptive strike.”

During the tripartite meeting, there even appeared agenda items that seemed to resuscitate the so-called “three way southern alliance” of South Korea, the United States and Japan. In a joint statement, the three foreign ministers said Seoul, Washington and Tokyo had pledged to strengthen their efforts regarding the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS), and in particular, South Korea and Japan welcomed formal U.S. participation in the ARF starting in 2011.

Requesting anonymity, one diplomatic source said, “The EAS has recently become the multilateral body shown the most concern by Washington, which seeks to intervene politically and militarily in Asia.” …

Read on: http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/452771.html

Reuters
By Steve Gutterman
November 30, 2010

President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Tuesday that a new arms race would erupt within the next decade unless Russia and the West forged an agreement to cooperate on building a missile defense system.

In his annual state of the nation address, Medvedev called for closer cooperation with the United States and the European Union, holding out the prospect of closer ties two decades after the Soviet Union’s collapse ended the Cold War.

He said tension would ratchet up fast, forcing Russia to bolster its military arsenal, if Western offers of cooperation on a system to defend against missile threats failed to produce a concrete agreement.

The warning appeared to reflect wariness in the Kremlin over uncertainty about Senate ratification of New START, the nuclear arms limitation pact Medvedev signed with President Barack Obama in April, centerpiece of the push for better ties.

“In the coming decade we face the following alternatives: Either we reach agreement on missile defense and create a full-fledged joint mechanism of cooperation, or … a new round of the arms race will begin,” Medvedev said.

“And we will have to take a decision about the deployment of new offensive weapons. It is clear that this scenario would be very grave.” …

Read on: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101130/wl_nm/us_russia_medvedev

BBC News
By Paul Rincon
December 3, 2010

A prototype spaceplane built for the US military has returned to Earth after seven months in orbit [on a classified mission].

The unpiloted X-37B touched down at Vandenberg Air Force base in California …

X-37B Space Plane (photo: US Air Force)

The project has been shrouded in secrecy, prompting widespread speculation about the craft’s purpose.

The Air Force has not said whether it carried anything in its cargo bay, but insists the primary purpose of the mission was to test the craft itself. …

Jeremy Eggers, an Air Force spokesman based at Vandenberg said the craft is expected to return to space in Spring 2011. …

The Boeing-built spacecraft returned to Earth on “auto-pilot”; the successful return marks the first autonomous re-entry and landing in the recorded history of the US space programme.

Because the X-37B (also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, OTV-1) started life as a Nasa programme, the Air Force is in a position to talk openly about the craft’s design, but its precise purpose remains classified. …

Read the full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11911335

Global Security Newswire
November 29, 2010

NATO leaders last week turned down an offer by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for incorporating Russia’s missile defense system in a planned alliance-wide antimissile framework, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday …

Under the “sectoral missile defense” proposal, Russia would intercept missiles targeting NATO nations while the military alliance would destroy missiles flying over their own territories, Medvedev told journalists after meeting with alliance leaders.

NATO members on Friday approved plans to establish an integrated and enhanced shield against missile threats. They have encouraged Russia to participate in the missile shield, but Moscow has expressed concern that the project could undermine its strategic nuclear deterrent.

“Medvedev is effectively proposing to create a collective missile-defense system along the perimeter of the Euro-Atlantic region. It roughly amounts to agreeing not to keep missile-defense systems inside the region — something that raises our suspicions — and arrange for the system to be pointed outwards,” Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said.

President Obama and other summit attendees politely set aside Medvedev’s proposal and called for governmental specialists to examine options for NATO-Russian missile defense cooperation in greater detail. The analysts would report on their findings at a meeting of top NATO and Russian defense officials planned next June.

Nations were uncertain whether Medvedev’s proposal was aimed at laying the groundwork for future missile defense discussions or at thwarting further talks on the matter, diplomats told the Journal.

“For military men on both sides, [Medvedev’s] supposition looks, to put it gently, far-fetched,” Russian General Staff chief Gen. Nikolai Makarov said in Russia’s Rossiskaya Gazeta newspaper. “The fact is that any country with missile-defense systems would shoot down missiles approaching its borders without any international agreements” …

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20101129_4596.php

The Telegraph
By Praveen Swami
November 24, 2010

European states will have to spend billions of pounds over the next 10 years to build a ballistic missile defence shield designed to protect the region from nuclear attack, according to Nato officials.

European and US leaders agreed, at last week’s Nato summit in Lisbon, to spend around £ 170 million on the system.

But that sum, a Nato background document says, will only meet the cost of command-and-control networks which will link future national interceptor missile and radar sites to a separate Europe-based US system designed to protect its troops.

The Pentagon’s April, 2010 acquisitions report placed the cost of a similar US system at $58.01 billion (£36 billion) – after budget constraints forced the killing-off of futuristic components like Boeing 747-mounted lasers. …

Read in full at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8157772/Full-cost-of-European-missile-defence-could-run-to-billions.html

CRIENGLISH.com
November 25, 2010

Bolivia on Wednesday urged fellow Latin American countries to keep U.S. military bases off their soil. Otherwise, it said, peace and democracy in the region will be at risk.

Defense Minister Ruben Saavedra made the remarks at the 9th Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, which is also attended by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

“Bolivia’s position is in the context of a clear governmental policy to defend the sovereignty of the people and the noninterference of other nations, including world powers, in internal policies,” he said.

The Bolivian government is convinced that U.S. or foreign military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean put peace in the region at risk, and endanger democratic order, the minister added.

About 30 countries took part in the conference.

http://english.cri.cn/6966/2010/11/25/2021s606985.htm

NTI: Global Security Newswire
November 22, 2010

South Korea might request to again host U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, April 21).

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young discussed the matter today with South Korean lawmakers following reports that Pyongyang had allowed a U.S. scientist to view a previously secret uranium enrichment facility (see related GSN story, today).

Lawmakers questioned Kim on the possible return of U.S. nuclear weapon to South Korea. He responded, “I will review what you said in consultation with members of the [U.S.-South Korean] Extended Deterrence Policy Committee.”

Washington is believed to have pulled its tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991. Kim’s statement is sure to aggravate the neighboring regime and to worry China and Japan — two members of the six-party talks aimed at North Korean denuclearization, according to the Times.

Former South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said in April that Seoul had no intention of again hosting U.S. nonstrategic nuclear arms. However, there is support for such a move among harder-line elements in the country.

“Even though relocating nuclear weapons to South Korea could provoke China or Russia, it could be an effective tool to press the North,” said analyst Cheon Seong-whun (Christian Oliver, Financial Times, Nov. 22).

The United States keeps 28,500 military personnel in South Korea as defense against the North and says its ally remains under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella (Xinhua News Agency, Nov. 22).

The Voice of Russia
By Vyacheslav Solovyov
November 21, 2010

Russia has accepted NATO`s offer to develop a joint anti-missile defence in Europe. Many experts view this as a main achievement of the Russia-NATO Council meeting in Lisbon.

Speaking at a press-briefing after the summit, the Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said that he had suggested his partners in NATO to consider the idea of the European anti-missile defence divided into sectors:

“I do understand that this issue requires a very thorough analysis, and we do not expect a prompt reaction. We know that different countries have their own view of the problem. But Russia would be ready to develop a joint anti-missile defense system only on equality basis.”

Mr. Medvedev did not go into detail but stressed that no matter what kind of anti-missile defense system Europe had, Russia would support only true partnership relied on equality. The Voice of Russia asked the deputy head of the Institute of the US and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pavel Zolotarev, to comment on Russia’s proposal:

“The case in point is that each country or alliance has its own missile defense facilities to protect its airspace. As for long-range ballistic missiles, their warheads cross several aerial zones, and each country is supposed to be responsible for its own zone, which seems to be the only logical way of doing it because a country, for example the United States, cannot be responsible for Russian airspace, in other words, it cannot shoot down someone else’s missiles over Russia and let the fragments fall on Russian territory. Cooperation implies coordinated actions. Russia and the Untied States have some experience in the field, and so does NATO. Together with Americans, we have been conducting research in organizing theater missile defense. So you see that the Russian proposals are well-grounded and quite logical. Here, political factors move to the background – that’s a reasonable way of building this system.” …

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/11/21/35369980.html