MPs Criticise US Missile Shield Plan

[Sackboy]

MPs criticise U.S. missile shield plan
Reuters Adrian Croft

A planned U.S. missile shield may not strengthen Europe's security and could hurt NATO's interests if deployed in the face of Russian opposition, MPs said on Sunday.

The United States says the anti-missile system is designed to prevent potential attacks from countries such as Iran, but the plan has outraged Moscow which sees it as a threat.

Russia has urged Washington to drop its plan to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. Both former Soviet satellites are now NATO members.

Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, made up of legislators from the main political parties, voiced reservations about the U.S. plan in a report on weapons proliferation.

"We are not convinced that, as they are currently envisaged and under current circumstances, the United States' planned ballistic missile defence (BMD) deployments in the Czech Republic and Poland represent a net gain for European security," it said.

"We conclude that if the deployments are carried out in the face of opposition from Russia, this could be highly detrimental to NATO's overall security interests," the report said.

It did not elaborate but Moscow has threatened to respond to the shield by placing short-range Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave, between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

If a ballistic missile defence system in Europe were to be developed at all, it should be as a joint system between the United States, NATO and Russia, the committee said.

UK DECISION "REGRETTABLE"

The government's early agreement to allow two Royal Air Force (RAF) bases in Britain to be used as part of the U.S. missile defence system was "regrettable, given that the United States' development of its system involved its abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," the committee said.

The United States withdrew from the treaty in 2002.

The government supports the missile shield being developed by its closest ally. It has allowed the United States to use two RAF bases in northern England, Menwith Hill and Fylingdales, to receive satellite and radar data for the system.

U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to press on with the plan as long as Iran poses a threat with its nuclear programme.

The committee warned there was a risk that next year's conference to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will fail unless there was decisive movement by the five recognised nuclear weapons states -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- on nuclear disarmament.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in March Britain was prepared to include its nuclear arsenal in multilateral arms control talks.

That raised media speculation about whether the government might be prepared to scrap plans to replace its ageing Trident submarine-based nuclear weapons system with a new system costing up to 20 billion pounds at a time when public sector borrowing is soaring because of a deep recession.

The committee urged the government to say "whether there are circumstances under which the UK would be prepared to suspend the Trident renewal programme."

(Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090614/tpl-uk-britain-missile-81f3b62.html

They're right. It needs to be inclusive.

 

[Alan]

This should be in N&C

 

[Fudzy]

I don't see any issue with America trying to defend itself so long it isn't firing the nukes themselves.

 

[PeterCH]

Correct. The Americans have spent billions in R&D to get their existing systems as advanced as they are and the Russkies would like a free ride - maybe even the blueprints to leech the tech. Well f-that. Go home Mr Bear. Spend some of those oil Rubles on some investments for your failing country.

No-one is stopping Russia, or any other country from developing their own ABM shield. The problem of course is that Russia has p-eed their money away and has no oil cash to develop significant ABM although they have short range systems. Someone needs to remind them that it's been 20 years since they were a Super Power.

 

[Sackboy]

I don't see any issue with America trying to defend itself so long it isn't firing the nukes themselves.

They can defend themselves - sure - but not by why base the weapons in someone else's territory?

That means if a NUKE gets hit, the fallout drops over the country hosting the system. It also becomes a first strike strategic target.

They are also provoking a fight with Russia by putting one on that border. Even Poland agrees that the argument is about that and not defence.

 

[Sackboy]

Correct. The Americans have spent billions in R&D to get their existing systems as advanced as they are and the Russkies would like a free ride - maybe even the blueprints to leech the tech. Well f-that. Go home Mr Bear. Spend some of those oil Rubles on some investments for your failing country.

No-one is stopping Russia, or any other country from developing their own ABM shield. The problem of course is that Russia has p-eed their money away and has no oil cash to develop significant ABM although they have short range systems. Someone needs to remind them that it's been 20 years since they were a Super Power.

Perhaps they don't actually need one. They have pretty effective ground-to-air systems that can take on ANY US aircraft, even the so-called stealth ones. They also don't have many enemies bent on chucking missiles at them.

 

[PeterCH]

Perhaps they don't actually need one. They have pretty effective ground-to-air systems that can take on ANY US aircraft, even the so-called stealth ones. They also don't have many enemies bent on chucking missiles at them.

USA has a lot to loose if a nuke lands there, and with NK and Iranian nuclear proliferation and ICBM development I think they have a degree of needing them. There certainly are people they can and do sell their tech too, I know Taiwan, South Korea and Japan are buying AEGIS/PAC-3 systems from the US or thinking about buying them.

Plus you never know what the future will bring. A new offensive Russia - we could see a revolution there and a new more anti-Western tyrant emerge there, China could see a revolution and all hell could break loose there, Pakistan could become unstable.

With an ABM shield, the US has some additional guarantees against rogue states, that think a few nuclear missiles are enough to threaten America.
The US has lots to loose if a nuke landed there - of course they'd retaliate - but an ABM shield gives the appearance that the US could PREVENT even one nuke landing there and then respond with nukes of their own.

 

[Sackboy]

Experts have said there is no effective defence against a nuclear strike. Even an attempted one would be disastrous for the state hosting the 'shield'.

 

[PeterCH]

Experts have said there is no effective defence against a nuclear strike. Even an attempted one would be disastrous for the state hosting the 'shield'.

You got some links to that from credible sources, because what you said makes no logical sense. A defensive strike against an Iranian/Russian rocket going towards the US over Europe is not an act of war towards Iran/Russian. However, a pre-emptive attack by Iran or Russia on such a base would mean an act of war as such a base would be considered US territory and would be manned by US personel. A country which attacked such a base would cease to exist within 30minutes, so I seriously doubt that would happen. If anyone has the balls to go fully nuclear and put its money where its mouth is, it's the USA. They've proven this countless times, for example in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Krushchev knew the Yanks would not back down, it was going to be nuclear war - there and then. Secondly the shield would be on NATO territory, an attack on NATO territory means full retaliation.
Putin knows this very well.

With return of the current Iranian president in the recent elections there, it looks like this shield will go ahead, Russia will learn to accept it.

 

[Sackboy]

You got some links to that from credible sources, because what you said makes no logical sense. A defensive strike against an Iranian/Russian rocket going towards the US over Europe is not an act of war towards Iran/Russian. However, a pre-emptive attack by Iran or Russia on such a base would mean an act of war as such a base would be considered US territory and would be manned by US personel. A country which attacked such a base would cease to exist within 30minutes, so I seriously doubt that would happen. If anyone has the balls to go fully nuclear and put its money where its mouth is, it's the USA. They've proven this countless times, for example in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Krushchev knew the Yanks would not back down, it was going to be nuclear war - there and then. Secondly the shield would be on NATO territory, an attack on NATO territory means full retaliation.
Putin knows this very well.

With return of the current Iranian president in the recent elections there, it looks like this shield will go ahead, Russia will learn to accept it.

A panel of Russian and US scientists concludes that the projected US missile shield in Eastern Europe would not act as protection from an Iranian strike and cannot be justified based upon a threat from Iran.

“If Iran believed that U.S. missile defenses were effective and was reckless enough to want to attack Europe or the United States, it could simply build more missiles to overwhelm those defenses. If Iran were to attack Europe with more than one or two missiles, the European missile defense system as proposed could not defend Europe,” says the report.

Russia Today

 

[PeterCH]

Russia Today

Russia Today is the voice of the Kremlin. Those 'scientists' are bogus.

But even if you believe them, Russia has nothing to fear, for surely Russia has several thousand ICBMs which could launch at the USA not just over Europe, but through the Arctic Circle and from the East across the Bering Strait.

Russia will get used to this ABM. There is nothing they can do to stop it.
(I've cast my VOTE FOR this shield. )

 

[Sackboy]

Russia Today is the voice of the Kremlin. Those 'scientists' are bogus.

But even if you believe them, Russia has nothing to fear, for surely Russia has several thousand ICBMs which could launch at the USA not just over Europe, but through the Arctic Circle and from the East across the Bering Strait.

Russia will get used to this ABM. There is nothing they can do to stop it.
(I've cast my VOTE FOR this shield. )

Oh hilarious! You've dismissed an international team of scientists from the US and Russia before you even knew who they were.
http://docs.ewi.info/JTA.pdf

UNITED STATES: Philip Coyle, Senior Advisor, Center for
Defense Information; Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus,
Thomas Watson Research Center; Ambassador James
Goodby, Nonresident Senior Fellow, the Brookings
Institution; Siegfried S. Hecker, Co-Director of CISAC and
Professor (Research), Department of Management Science
and Engineering, Stanford University; David Holloway,
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History,
Stanford University; Theodore A. Postol, Professor of Science,
Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Grigory Chernyavsky, Director of
the Earth Space Monitoring Scientifi c Center, Correspondent
Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; General (Ret.)
Viktor Koltunov, Deputy Director, Institute for Strategic
Stability; Leonid Ryabikhin, Executive Secretary of the
Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms
Control and Senior Fellow, EastWest Institute; Vitaly Shyukin,
Head of Lab, Russian Federal Nuclear Center “Scientifi c
Research Institute of Technical Physics” (VNIITF); Boris
Vinogradov, Professor, Moscow Aviation

In addition, other experts contributed in an ad hoc basis to the
proceedings or as reviewers of the draft at diff erent stages:

UNITED STATES: Joseph Cirincione, President, Ploughshares
Fund; General Lance Lord (USAF, ret.), Distinguished
Fellow, EastWest Institute; General Rick Olson (USA, ret.).
RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Vyacheslav Amirov, Senior Fellow,
Institute of World Economy and International Relations; Igor
Kondratsky, Councillor, Embassy of the Russian Federation in
France; Artem Malgin, Advisor to the Rector of the Moscow
State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO); Nikolay
Morozov, Deputy Director, Earth Space Monitoring Scientifi c
Center; Igor Neverov, Director of the Department of North
America, Russian Ministry of Foreign Aff airs; General (Ret.)
Michael Vinogradov, former President of the Committee
of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control; Irina
Zvyagelskaya, Professor, MGIMO