Col. Stanislav Lunev
Thursday, March 1, 2001

In the beginning of February, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld informed American allies in Europe that the U.S. "intends to develop and deploy a missile defense designed to defend our people and our forces against a limited missile attack." He also said that the U.S. "is prepared to assist friends and allies threatened by missile attack to deploy such forces."

And guess what happened? Actually, nothing special – the sky didn't fall, despite some predictions in the mainstream media that NMD could cause a split between the U.S. and its NATO friends and allies. It looks as if these American friends and allies had a chance finally to realize that NMD is a reasonable idea for our unpredictable and very well-armed world.

According to the Russian media, during his meeting with reporters in Munich Secretary Rumsfeld especially underscored the fact that Moscow should not fear NMD since it is designed to intercept only a handful of incoming missiles from the so-called rogue states. He also said the Kremlin is "off the mark" in calling NMD a "threat" to arms control.

However, this idea about creation of a national missile shield found no support in Moscow, which already has its own NMD and, of course, doesn’t want to provide the same advantage to the U.S. and America's friends and allies.

The day after Secretary Rumsfeld’s presentation, Russia’s influential Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov surprised an international security conference in Munich with an uncompromising speech denouncing the U.S. intention to deploy an NMD, as well as Western plans to further NATO extension.

Secretary Ivanov said that the U.S. plans to deploy an NMD would undermine world stability and lead to a new arms race in outer space. He of course offered to initiate talks on deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons if the U.S. will abandon its plans.

"The destruction of the ABM treaty will result in the annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race, including one in outer space," Ivanov said.

"Restraining the so-called rogue nations – to use the American terminology – may be carried out more effectively from the point of view of both expense and consequences by means of a common political effort," Ivanov said.

"The situation in North Korea is the obvious example, because the situation a year ago seemed much worse than today."

These are merely words, but evidently realizing that the new U.S. administration is serious, Moscow is taking its own precautions. After a conference in Munich, the Kremlin announced that in the spring Russia's President Putin would have special meetings with the leaders of North Korea and Iran. Such lovely friends Moscow has.

Also Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev responded promptly, telling reporters that in response to the NMD and NATO expansion, Moscow will abandon most other arms control agreements and will deploy "asymmetrical" countermeasures that were designed in the 1980s to counter Ronald Reagan's SDI program.

We know that the latest Russian strategic intercontinental ballistic missile, the Topol-M, or SS-27, was specially designed to penetrate anti-ballistic missile defenses. Previously Sergeev has been criticized by some Russian politicians for spending almost all the procurement money of the Ministry of Defense in 1997-1999 to deploy the SS-27, which has, among other features, the capability to carry many decoy warheads to baffle enemy radar and interceptors.

A number of these decoy warheads were developed and tested in outer space during the time of the former Soviet Union, and as of today Russian "asymmetrical measures" are already in place.

The only problem is that up to now the U.S. has no missile defense at all, while Russia is already deploying the SS-27.

Moscow also tried to buttress its political attempts to influence the new U.S. administration and its plans for the NMD by taking practical steps, including the demonstration of Russia's military power. In the middle of February, Russian military forces were engaged in an unusually large-scale military field exercise involving strategic and conventional armed forces that included three long-range missile flight tests.

During these exercises, the traditional "triad" of strategic land, sea and air forces, which involved the intrusion of Russian strategic bombers into Japanese airspace and flights near Norwegian airspace, Moscow demonstrated its new combat capabilities over the huge territory stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts.

In addition to strategic forces, Russian conventional forces were involved in this exercise, including mobilization of the troops from the Russian Federal Border Guards Service and the Federal Security Service. As usual, these exercises involved different war scenarios during simulated armed conflicts with the U.S. and other NATO countries.

As Russia's relatively independent press said last year, President Putin had a chance to consolidate Russian society and won a victory at the polls by giving the people an image of a clear enemy – the Chechen separatists, supported by an alleged international Muslim extremist cabal.

Now the war in Chechnya has been officially proclaimed by the Kremlin to have ended in victory, so a new enemy is being put forward to mobilize the nation and to explain to fellow Russians that the reason they are still living substandardly is because of a new – actually, old – enemy.

According to the Russian media, the Kremlin's leaders apparently hope they can manage the level of confrontation with the West, so that Russians feel threatened and work harder while at the same time Western investments continue to flow in. But there is a big question over their ability to control the development of events. For example, in the beginning of its war in Chechnya, the Kremlin originally planned only a limited engagement, but instead a full-scale war ensued that Russia cannot win.

In other words, instead of resolving Russia's very deep economic and social problems domestically, the Kremlin leaders are going back to the old tactic of confrontation with the West. Thanks to Western politicians in general and, in particular, to the Clinton-Gore administration, which during the last several years preferred to close its eyes to Russia's military preparations.

We know that the previous U.S. administration built its policy involving the Russian Federation on the basis of offering a carrot without a stick. But now there is no doubt that the new people in the White House are prepared to use both in an effort to avoid going back to the Cold War and a new crisis in the face of Russia’s currently adversarial policy.

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