Global Security Newswire

A senior U.S. State Department official said yesterday that Russian leaders seem ready to take an even tougher stand on U.S. missile defense activities in order to "test the mettle" of President-elect Barack Obama once he takes office next month, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 15).

Moscow has already made its displeasure clear with the Bush administration's plan to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. Russia has threatened to deploy short-range missiles against what it characterizes as a threat to its strategic security, dismissing U.S. assertions that the installations are intended to counter potential threats from Iran or other rogue nations.

Obama has not said formally whether he would pursue the European missile defense program, but has indicated that the technology must be proved to function before deployment.

"The Russians intend to test the mettle of the new administration and the new president," acting Undersecretary of State John Rood, who met this week with Russian officials in Moscow to discuss strategic weapons issues, said during a press briefing. "The future will show how the new administration chooses to answer that challenge."

Rood added: "I think missile defense and other subjects will be among those that the Russians intend to determine what the new administration's posture will be."

Recent missile defense talks have already been marked by reduced flexibility from Moscow, Rood said. One example involved the response to proposals to increase transparency of the European missile defense sites, which would involve giving Russian personnel access to the facilities.

"I don't want to spell out all the details because I think this is a high-priority dialogue for us in the United States, and I don't think that putting all the details out will facilitate a resolution to it," Rood said.

Talks this week addressed missile defense, along with the U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which sets caps on deployment of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles and is set to expire at the end of 2009. The talks produced no agreements, AP reported.

Russia is seeking a replacement pact that would also address long-range bombers and other conventional weapons, while the Bush administration believes the focus should remain on nuclear arms.

Further strategic talks are likely prior to Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, Rood said (Robert Burns, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Dec. 17).

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) yesterday called for a "running start" on a new arms reduction pact, Agence France-Presse reported.

"We really have to come to grips with the fact that the world depends upon our having a continuation of the START treaty," Lugar, a longtime arms control advocate, said during a trip to Moscow. He was scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other senior Russian officials (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Dec. 17).

Lavrov yesterday also expressed hope that Moscow and Washington could come to terms on a replacement arms control deal, AP reported.

"We hope that the new U.S. administration ... will cooperate constructively with us so that the START regime after December 2009 should be preserved and strengthened, rather than weakened," he said, according to ITAR-Tass and Interfax.

Meanwhile, Russian strategic missile forces chief Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said that the RS-24 nuclear missile, which could be equipped with multiple nuclear warheads when deployed next year, does not represent a violation of the treaty's ban on adding warheads to single-warhead missiles. The RS-24 is entirely new, he said (see GSN, Dec. 17; (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Dec. 17).