Ruslan Pukhov
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Missile Defense Stalemate
The crisis surrounding the US deployment of missile defense elements in Europe is not an accident. It came to be as the result of both the US’s and Russia’s foreign and defense policies.
It’s a well-known fact that America is the only remaining superpower. The only practical explanation for the Bush administration’s effort to further strengthen America’s position is to make inferior any uncontrolled center of power. Washington feels that no other world power should be able to challenge their leadership and under no circumstances should they themselves become a superpower. Nor should any other power hinder US forces in the world.
From this point of view the biggest threat is not from North Korea or Iran, but from Russia’s nuclear forces. No matter how you look at it this is the only force capable of dethroning America from its superpower status and inflicting significant losses. China could also reach this stage in the future. Only by neutralizing Russia and China will the US reach its main goal of its foreign policy.
American today can’t build a system capable of deflecting all strikes from Russia. But it can build such a system in stages. The first stage would be to build a system capable of neutralizing missile strikes against its territory. This keeps “third class” powers like Iran and North Korea from responding to American pressure.
Its not difficult to understand why America’s assurances that the missile defense system are only against North Korea and Iran fail to convince Moscow. Russia believes that America’s goals toward it are no different than those toward Iran and North Korea. The only thing restricting America right now is a lack of economic and technical resources.
In light of this any Russian-American discussion on the governmental level about missile defense would be unproductive and senseless. Which is exactly what we are see at the moment.
Ruslan Pukhov, Director, Center for Strategic Analysis and Technology
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 04, 2007
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