Russia Ready To Counter US Missile Shield

SPACEWAR

Russia Ready To Counter US Shield

when words fail to impress

Moscow (Interfax) April 4, 2001
Russia has a set of "active and passive measures" it could use should the U.S. start deploying a national missile defense system (NMD), Russian General Staff experts told Interfax on Thursday.

In response to such a development, "Russia would have to take a number of asymmetric countermeasures, passive and active alike," they said. Among such measures is upgrading of the Topol-M missile complex by boosting its potential to penetrate NMD, creating mobile strategic nuclear forces, mounting more warheads on multiple re-entry (MIRV) vehicles, and extending the service life of "heavy missiles."

"We speak only about passive measures at this point. We cannot talk about active ones for definite reasons," one expert explained.

Meanwhile Russia, has cited a recent report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, argues that there is no need for the planned defense.

The CSIS came to this conclusion after analyzing missile programs in so-called "rogue states," against which the NMD would be directed, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a release obtained by Interfax.

"It is quite understandable that many of the points in the report are apparently borrowed from American sources," the ministry said. "It is particularly indicative that even an intelligence service so firmly 'tied down' to the United States has come to the conclusion that there is at present no missile threat to North America, something that the ideologues of the American NMD refer to in working out their antimissile plans.

"In effect, the report is yet another confirmation of the validity of doubts by the international community that recipes for military force are appropriate for solving major current security problems.

"We remain convinced that only an interested concrete dialogue, to which we invite our partners in the United States and NATO, will make it possible to make a correct assessment of the state of affairs in the field of the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means for their delivery and to find responsible solutions that would make it possible to preserve and strengthen strategic stability in the world. The new concrete Russian proposals for wide international interaction in this field are well known."

SPACEWAR

Rumsfeld Plays Down The "National" In Missile Defense

Washington (AFP) March 8, 2001
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday he was devising a missile defense strategy that drops the emphasis on a "national" defense of US territory and instead seeks to encompass protection of US forces and allies as well

Russian Capable of Overcoming Any Anti Missile Defense

Moscow (Interfax) Feb. 16, 2001
Training launches of air, ground, and sea-based ballistic missiles carried out in Russia on Friday show that "Russian strategic forces are capable of overcoming any anti-missile defense, be it a currently existing or potential one," First Deputy Russian Chief of General Staff Col. Gen. Valery Manilov has said.

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