Diplomat Optimistic on U.S.-Russian Missile Shield Collaboration

The United States and Russia have a good chance of establishing plans to carry out joint missile defense work, Interfax yesterday quoted U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns as saying (see GSN, June 25).

"The decisions that President [Barack] Obama took last autumn with regard to missile defense when he significantly adjusted American plans for missile defense have opened up new opportunities for cooperation with Russia. And we are certainly committed to explore those," Burns said.

The Obama administration announced last fall it plans over a period of years to deploy land- and sea-based variants of the U.S. Standard Missile 3 interceptor in and around Europe. The systems would be intended to provide a shield against short- and medium-range Iranian missiles (see GSN, Sept. 18, 2009).

The Kremlin had strenuously objected to a now-scrapped missile shield plan put forward by the Bush administration, which sought to deploy missile interceptors in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. It has appeared wary of the Obama program.
"Obviously given the history of this issue, given the difficulties that we've had in the past it takes time to do that. But we believe there are real opportunities here in the interests of both of our countries to go forward," the diplomat said.
Washington and Moscow "have begun to explore some practical areas of cooperation," he said.

"In missile defense, for example, we are conducting a joint threat assessment of ballistic missiles," Burns said. "We've also begun to explore within the Russia-NATO Council ways in which we might resume cooperation in missile defense" (see GSN, July 26; Interfax, Sept. 13).

Tuesday, September 14, 2010