By Ivanka Barzashka | May 14, 2012
Russia’s Ministry of Defense held an unprecedented international conference in Moscow last week to explain “how NATO missile defense facilities … may affect Russia’s forces of nuclear deterrence.” Senior Russian military officials used the meeting, which included 200 participants from 50 countries, to publicly back President Vladimir Putin’s decision to skip the NATO summit in Chicago later this mon
Russia’s Ministry of Defense held an unprecedented international conference in Moscow last week to explain “how NATO missile defense facilities … may affect Russia’s forces of nuclear deterrence.” Senior Russian military officials used the meeting, which included 200 participants from 50 countries, to publicly back President Vladimir Putin’s decision to skip the NATO summit in Chicago later this month due to the impasse over US missile defense deployments in Europe, now the core of the NATO system. The NATO-Russia Council resolved to cooperate on missile defense during the 2010 Lisbon Summit.
The conference added little to Russia’s official, political position on missile defense. Moscow had already made very clear at least some of the reasons it worries about growing NATO capability and how it would counter advanced missile defenses if they are deployed. Washington denies the system threatens Russia. Independent US experts , however, haven’t been able to agree on whether Russian political statements have technical merit; they have had to make assumptions about what conservative Russian military planners are thinking. This has now changed. Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Defense explained the technical argument behind Moscow’s long-standing concerns. As yet, it is unclear how valid these technical assertions may be, but they could at least act as a concrete starting point for expert dialogue that could help Russia and NATO reach some kind of missile defense accommodation.
Offense-defense. The inextricable link between strategic defenses and offenses is at the core of Russian concerns over NATO deployments. On Russia’s insistence, the linkage was clearly stated in the preamble of the New START treaty. It has been cited by former President and current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and was repeated last week by the Chief of the General Staff, Nikolay Makarov. But the connection isn’t a novel idea. Western Cold War strategists have long argued that the deployment of defenses by one side would reduce the effectiveness of the other side’s second-strike weapons. This would jeopardize mutual nuclear deterrence and create instability, causing an arms race or creating incentives for the first use of nuclear weapons during conflict — and this is exactly the language being used by Russia today. Moscow sees global security as “equal and indivisible” and dependent on the mutual nuclear deterrence relationship between it and the United States. This means Washington’s improvement of its security via missile defenses should not undercut Moscow’s security by reducing its confidence in its nuclear weapons arsenal.
Chief of Staff Makarov described European deployments as part of a US global missile defense system that, as a whole, threatens Russian nuclear strategic forces and outlined a series of retaliatory measures if “deployed BMD assets appear to be on the rise.” He warned that Russia may pre-emptively take out NATO missile defense sites in a “period of heightening tension” because the system might enable a US nuclear first strike. This classic example of crisis instability was reported as new by the New York Times and the Associated Press but was, in fact, simply an expansion on a list of possible Russian responses to NATO missile defenses that Medvedev gave in a November 2011 televised speech. Still, throughout the conference, Ministry of Defense officials stressed that Cold War thinking doesn’t have to prevail, and there is still time for cooperation.
Russian officials have expressed at least six general areas of technical concerns about the NATO missile defense system:
Fait accompli. In Chicago, NATO will announce that its missile defense system has achieved an interim capability — integrating US European Phased Adaptive Approach Phase 1 assets with NATO command and control. Though the alliance says it remains open to cooperation with Russia, it is forging ahead with deployments. Moscow sees these advancements as a sign that NATO is not sincere about cooperation and Russia is being presented with a “fait accompli.” President Putin was more direct: “It seems to me that our partners are looking for vassals, not allies. They want to govern. But Russia cannot come into line with this.”
The Moscow conference provides valuable insights into Russian military planning and is, perhaps, the start of the “constructive and unbiased dialogue with scholars and experts” that Medvedev advocated in a March speech at the Russian Council for International Affairs. The NATO-Russia missile defense standoff appears to be a narrow technical issue, but it is fueled by broader political concerns. Untangling Russian technical and political concerns is key to finding a way forward. If Moscow’s objections are entirely political, then giving Russia a seat at the table might be enough; some cooperation measures could be worth pursuing for purely political reasons. It is unlikely, however, that a missile defense option with no technical merit — that is, one that is simply symbolic — would be politically adequate. Some of Moscow’s objections to NATO’s current missile defense plans could be technically valid, making political guarantees alone inadequate and perhaps justifying hardware decisions that could help turn a missile defense crisis into a missile defense agreement.
Editor’s note: The author thanks Ivan Oelrich and Evgeny Buzhinsky for their insightful comments and Frank Hemmes for his discussion and research on the topic.
The Bulletin elevates expert voices above the noise. But as an independent, nonprofit media organization, our operations depend on the support of readers like you. Help us continue to deliver quality journalism that holds leaders accountable. Your support of our work at any level is important. In return, we promise our coverage will be understandable, influential, vigilant, solution-oriented, and fair-minded. Together we can make a difference.
Topics: Missile Defense, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion
Share:
Leave a Reply