Global Security Newswire

The United States regrets that more headway has not been realized in the missile defense discussions it has engaged in for more than a year with Russia, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon said (see GSN, Jan. 9).

Moscow and Washington disagree over the Obama administration's plans to gradually deploy increasingly advanced missile interceptors around Europe as a proclaimed bulwark against a feared missile attack from the Middle East, RIA Novosti reported. Washington and NATO since late 2010 have sought in talks to persuade Russia to join their missile shield effort on the continent.

The Kremlin, however, continues to suspect  the antimissile systems would secretly be aimed at undermining its long-range nuclear forces. Russia has warned it could deploy short-range ballistic missiles in territory that borders several NATO nations if it cannot reach a compromise with Washington and Brussels on the matter.

"We wish that, more broadly, we had been able to make more progress in terms of NATO-Russia and U.S.-Russia cooperation on missile defense," Gordon said. "I think we made some progress towards some theater missile defense exercises ... which shows that the two sides, as in the past, as prior to 2008, can cooperate in a way that serves their interests."

"We're going to keep talking about [missile defense]," the assistant secretary said, continuing that the United States and NATO are committed to enacting the Obama administration's program for European missile defense. "We ... are going to move forward with the European phased adaptive approach because there's a growing threat from the proliferation of ballistic missiles, potentially combined with nuclear weapons proliferation."

He added: "We're going to continue to discuss it with Russia and look forward to progress in the future."

In addition, Gordon indicated the United States was open to talking about tactical nuclear arms deployed in Europe but said Washington's official posture on the matter has not shifted and "NATO will and should remain a nuclear alliance so long as nuclear weapons exist in the world."

Another point of contention between Moscow and Washington is the United States' continued assumed fielding of approximately 200 short-range nuclear bombs in Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey. Russia wants the gravity bombs withdrawn to the United States, even as it continues to wield inside its borders thousands of nonstrategic weapons (see GSN, July 15, 2011). 

"We have drawn attention on a number of occasions to the issue of nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons in Europe is to a significant degree the numbers," Gordon said. "A number of our allies have raised the issue, the numbers of tactical nuclear weapons, nonstrategic, that Russia has, and those should be the part of any discussion moving forward when it comes to nonstrategic weapons."

Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said that the Obama administration was moving toward talks negotiations with Russia for a new bilateral arms control accord that could cover reductions to both sides' nonstrategic systems (see GSN, Jan. 3; RIA Novosti, Jan. 10).

Meanwhile, Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachyov predicted that 2012 would not see any major advances in missile shield talks with the United States, ITAR-Tass reported.

"This year will be an election year not so much in our country as in the U.S., and the American administration will be bound tight hand and foot by election considerations. This is why I expect no breakthroughs in this field," the United Russia party member said.

Still, Kosachyov allowed that there remained some possibility an eventual compromise could be reached on U.S. missile defense plans.

"There is still a lot of time for making decisions that would satisfy all. The third and fourth stages of the [U.S. phased adaptive approach] missile defense construction, which worry us, will not begin next year and are scheduled for 2015 and 2018, respectively. So, there are chances for reaching agreement, even though maybe not next year," he said (ITAR-Tass, Jan. 9).