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Washington Post
By Craig Whitlock
March 21, 2011

Setting aside decades of acrimony over President Ronald Reagan’s vision of a “Star Wars” missile shield, the United States and Russia have been holding exploratory but serious talks about potential ways to cooperate on missile defense in Europe.

Russian and U.S. officials have met multiple times in Moscow and Washington since January to consider sharing data from sensors that could detect the launch of a ballistic missile from Iran or another hostile country.

Both sides have cautioned that no deal is imminent and that big differences remain. But the issue has been given a boost by back-to-back visits to Russia this month by Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

“We’ve disagreed before, and Russia still has uncertainties,” Gates said Monday in a speech to Russian naval officers in St. Petersburg. “However, we’ve mutually committed to resolving these difficulties in order to develop a road map toward truly effective anti-ballistic missile collaboration.’’

Such an assessment marks a sharp turnaround from years of bitter contention over missile defense. Although Washington always has portrayed its missile defense plans as purely defensive in nature, Moscow has eyed them as a backdoor plot to neutralize Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal.

Mutual suspicions over missile defense nearly derailed the New START arms-control pact last year. Although the treaty was ultimately ratified, U.S. officials until recently were largely dismissive of the idea that there was room for cooperation with Russia on missile defense.

“There is no meeting of the minds on missile defense,” Gates told a Senate panel in June. “The Russians hate it. . . . They will always hate it, mostly because we’ll build it and they won’t.” …

Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia_us_warm_up_on_missile_defense/2011/03/21/ABY7ei7_story.html

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Associated Press
By Vladimir Isachenkov
February 7, 2011

Russia sees the planned U.S. missile defense system as a potential threat to its nuclear forces and may review its participation in a landmark nuclear arms treaty, officials said Monday.

The New START deal, the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s efforts to reset ties with Russia and the most significant arms control pact in nearly two decades, took effect last week. It limits each country to 1,550 strategic warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.

The treaty doesn’t prevent the U.S. from building new missile defense systems, but Russia has warned that it reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if the United States significantly boosts its missile shield.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reaffirmed Monday that a buildup in the U.S. missile defense capability would prompt Moscow re-consider its obligations under the New START treaty.

“If the U.S. increases the qualitative and quantitative potential of its missile defense … a question will arise whether Russia should further abide by the treaty or would have to take other measures to respond to the situation, including military-technical measures,” Ryabkov said, according to Russian news agencies.

Russia was strongly critical of the previous U.S. administration’s plan to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic and hailed Obama’s decision to scrap it. But the Kremlin has remained concerned about revamped U.S. missile defense plans and continued to see them as potentially dangerous to its security. …

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110207/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_us_nuclear

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NTI: Global Security Newswire
January 26, 2011

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov today said the nation would move ahead with preparations to build its own antimissile defenses, RIA Novosti reported …

“As far as our missile defense system is concerned, we have been developing it and will be further developing it,” the defense chief told the upper house of the Russian parliament, which today voted to approve the New START nuclear arms pact with the United States …

Previous reports said Moscow was aiming for an “impenetrable” missile defense system by 2020.

The Kremlin is in discussions with NATO on potential collaboration for a missile defense shield intended to safeguard the European continent from potential short- and medium range missile strikes from the Middle East. Russia has warned it would withdraw from the negotiations if it feels it is not being treated as an equal partner …

http://globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110126_1141.php

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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

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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

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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

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ITAR TASS NEWS AGENCY
April 2, 2010

On April 8 in Prague, Russia and the United States will sign the new strategic arms reduction treaty which will be linked legally to missile defense. …

The new treaty does not mean to limit the development of U.S. missile defense. The Russian and U.S. presidents agreed from the very start that the treaty would focus on strategic offensive armaments, while missile defense would be the subject of another dialog …

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14984047&PageNum=0

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BBC News
By Jonathan Marcus
March 27, 2010

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called for a new missile defence system that would protect the US and its allies, and include Russia as well.

Mr Rasmussen said the threat of missile proliferation was real and growing and, in cases such as Iran, these missiles could threaten Nato territories.

He said missile defence could bring Nato and Russia together. …

The Nato secretary general said he saw a new Euro-Atlantic missile defence system, as he called it, as more than just a means of defending Nato countries against ballistic missile attack.

Mr Rasmussen clearly believes that such a system could re-invigorate not just the European allies’ relationship with the US but also Nato’s whole relationship with Russia.

“It would be an opportunity for Europe to demonstrate again to the United States that the allies are ready and willing to invest in the capabilities we need to defend ourselves,” he said.

‘New dynamic’

But he also argued that such a step would create a new dynamic in European security.

It would be a strong political symbol that Russia is fully part of the Euro-Atlantic family, he said.

It’s a bold proposal. The US has tried to draw Russia into its missile defence plans with very limited success. …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8591319.stm

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Kyiv Post
March 23, 2010

The United States has been refusing to include the missile defense issue in the new strategic offensive arms reduction treaty, said chief of the Russian armed forces’ General Staff, General of the Army Nikolai Makarov.

“The treaty is about 95% prepared, but individual aspects have yet to be negotiated, including the American side’s consent to include the problem of missile defense in the treaty – a matter of crucial importance for us,” Makarov said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, published on Tuesday.

Missile defense must be entered on the strategic arms reduction treaty in view of the United States’ plans to deploy elements of its missile defense system in Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, he said.

Makarov said the inclusion of missile defense reflects Russia’s national interests, noting that the Russian delegation to the talks will defend its basic position.

“The possibility and time of signing the new treaty will depend, in the first place, on the sides’ readiness to heed each other’s interests,” Makarov said.

The new strategic arms reduction treaty must seal the nuclear weapons parity between the United States and Russia. But in the absence of a separate agreement on missile defense, the U.S., while further developing this system, could shift the balance of forces in its favor, the general said.

“Even though the missile shield is a defensive system, if further developed it could give a new impulse to the arms race,” Makarov said.

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/62309/

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RIANOVOSTI
March 9, 2010

A new Russia-U.S. treaty on strategic arms reductions will link offensive and defensive armaments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1), the backbone of post-Cold War arms control, expired on December 5, and there is no formal replacement to it yet.

“This link [between missile defense and strategic arms] will of course be reflected,” Lavrov told journalists.

Asked what kind of link it will be, the Russian minister said it will be “legally binding,” recalling that the Russian and U.S. presidents confirmed the link last summer and told the two countries’ negotiators to include it in the document.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said early in March that Russia and the United States are close to completing negotiations on the new treaty, and expressed the hope that the document could be signed soon. The talks were to resume in Geneva on Tuesday after a 10-day break.

Russia and the United States have been negotiating a replacement to START 1 since the two countries’ presidents met in April last year, but finalizing a document has dragged on, with U.S. plans for missile defense in Europe a particular sticking point.

Lavrov has repeatedly made statements suggesting that a new nuclear arms cuts deal should be linked to Washington’s missile plans in Eastern Europe.

Some experts say, however, that the Russian demand will probably not be satisfied as the U.S. Senate is unlikely to ratify any document containing a formal linkage between the arms cuts and the missile shield.

U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped plans last year for interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic pursued by his predecessor as protection against possible Iranian strikes in an apparent move to ease Russian security concerns.

In February, however, Romania and Bulgaria said they were in talks with the Obama administration on deploying elements of the U.S. missile shield on their territories from 2015, triggering an angry reaction from Moscow.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100309/158138780.html

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