15 May 2012. PenzaNews. International Conference entitled the Missile Defence Factor in Establishing New Security Environment was held in Moscow on May 3–4 at the initiative of Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. The forum, attended by more than 200 diplomats, politicians and military specialists from over 50 countries, discussed various aspects of the problem — from assessment of threats of missile technology development to identifying the areas of cooperation in order to maintain strategic stability and equal partnership.

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“This topic has recently become very acute. There are two alternative developments. The first one is NATO’s unilateral deployment of Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) and in this case, as a reaction, Russia will take countermeasures. The second is a compromise and development of mutually beneficial cooperation in responding to missile threats,” the statement of Russian Ministry of Defence says.

As it is noted on the Defence Ministry website, along with officials of the leading countries and representatives of international organizations the forum was also attended by renowned experts of Russian and foreign think tanks.

It should be mentioned that Chief of General Staff, Army General Nikolai Makarov declared that Russia does not exclude the possibility of carrying out a pre-emptive strike on US-led NATO missile defence facilities in Europe.

“Considering the destabilizing nature of the [American] ABM system, namely the creation of an illusion of inflicting a disarming strike with impunity, a decision on pre-emptive deployment of assault weapons could be taken when the situation worsens. Distrust and suspicion of the parties will increase significantly. I want to emphasize that the use of weapons of destruction would be a measure of last resort in response to the deployment of a missile shield throughout Europe. I hope we will never have to use it,” general said.

In turn, American officials state that they see the threat only from Iran and do not seek to deprive Russia of its own defence capabilities. Moreover, the US Special Envoy for Strategic Stability and Missile Defense Ellen Tauscher hinted that there is a possibility of providing some potential guarantees on the interceptors.

“Russia is constantly speaking about guarantees of ABM systems not targeting it, but we think we need to come to cooperation. We provide guarantees after we start cooperating,” Ellen Tauscher said at a Moscow press conference.

At the same time, Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared on May 11 that NATO would actively develop European ABM systems in the coming 8–10 years. According to his words, land-based interceptors will be located in Romania by 2015 and in Poland by 2018.

Nevertheless, Moscow conference was very important as it brought the conflicting parties together and gave them the opportunity to express their views about the value of missile defence and the consequences of its deploying. Deputy Director and Head of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Disarmament, Arms Control, and Risk Technologies of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg Goetz Neuneck expressed this opinion in his interview with news agency “PenzaNews.”

“There are still a lot of questions to discuss, I mean both technical and political details. However, there is no urgency about the solution. There is still enough room to elaborate common ground for cooperation,” the expert noted.

Moreover, the analyst pointed out that at the current stage NATO is developing very limited missile defence capability.

“Current system is quite limited in terms of radar performance and interceptor performance. If one studies technical details there are a lot of doubts that these systems can really work and intercept missiles in current situation. Scientific studies indicate that the current system is not capable to counter missile countermeasures. The performance of the system is much exaggerated,” Goetz Neuneck said.

In addition, the expert considers understandable Russian will to cooperate as an equal partner for missile defence.

“NATO countries do not want to be totally dependent on Russia and Russian military does not want to be interfered by NATO military. Therefore, this is a fundamental problem. Nevertheless, if Russia and NATO work together in research centers they will find technical solutions for both sides — how to intercept missiles from the south. However, this only works if there is a common understanding of threat and how to counter it,” the analyst noted and added that this common ground is not yet there.

Despite this, Goetz Neuneck believes that both sides are not interested in stepping in a new arms race because this would ruin countries’ economies.

Director of Arms Control and Non-proliferation Program at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Ian Anthony shares the view of the German expert and believes that the current conditions are very far from the Cold War.

“On many issues, such as trade, people-to-people contacts, as well as collaboration on issues of mutual concern—such as energy security, regional security, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction—there are broad areas of agreement,” the expert reminded.

Ian Anthony pointed out that the only issue on which the language and posture of countries is reminiscent of the Cold War is in the area of military security.

“Here, in spite of statements that all countries would like to move to conditions of Mutual Assured Security, there is little or no progress in important processes such as arms control and confidence building,” he said and added that progress in those areas depends on high level political decisions.

At the same time, the analyst noted that the most positive outcome of the conference was the decision to include European participants in the discussion of missile defence, which has mainly been an issue discussed by Russia and the United States. However, according to his words, there is less likelihood that the meeting will contribute directly to a change of position on the issues.

“A pre-emptive strike on a missile defence installation would be an act of war, it is not part of a diplomatic exchange. Such a strike would open hostilities between NATO and Russia,” Ian Anthony declared.

Nevertheless, some experts have different point of view on the issue. Senior Fellow for Regional Security Cooperation of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Middle East Michael Elleman thinks that “military planners have to have a course of action for any possible scenario.”

“Pre-emptive strike against NATO missile defence would be possibly used by Russian but only in most extreme of circumstances. I think it was just a statement by the general to express the dissatisfaction with the future deployment of missile defence in Europe, although it is something that would be seen only in the dire circumstances,” the analyst noted.

In addition, the expert reminded that NATO and Russia have an ongoing conversation about cooperation on missile defence and despite the fact that the sectoral approach, that was offered by Russia, does not seem to be a workable solution at this point, the countries are open for discussion.

“Maybe at some future date the approach could be expanded and further pursuit, but at this point it does not look like the NATO countries find it as an acceptable solution. However, that does not mean that there will be no progress in the future. NATO is listening to Russia, Russia is listening to NATO — the conference had an important role in furthering the conversation,” Michael Elleman noted.

Nevertheless, according to the words of the analyst, legal guarantees would be extremely difficult to enact.

“I do not see that happening. Barak Obama has talked about political guarantees which do not satisfy the Russian side yet. However, legal guarantees is something that would be very hard to put in place,” he said.

Moreover, Anatoly Tsyganok, the director for the Center of Military Forecasting at the Moscow Institute of Political and Military Analysis thinks that it is too early to speak about some kind of an agreement because American system is opposed to Russian, and vice versa.

“So far joint missile defence system is utter nonsense. We are oriented against the US, the US —against us. We need to clearly identify the real threats,” the expert said.

Director of the Berthold Beitz Center for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia of the German Council on Foreign Relations Alexander Rahr has called the statement of Nikolai Makarov about possible preemptive strike ridiculous.

“I think this is an echo of the Cold War. The general’s statement caused laughter in Europe. This is absurd,” the expert said.

It should be noted that, according to media reports, the initial operational readiness of NATO European missile defence system will be announced at the NATO summit on May 20–21 in Chicago.

“Russia has realized that it could not prevent the deployment of European missile defence system, because Americans believe that this system can protect the United States and its allies against some imaginary missiles from Iran and North Korea. It is impossible to dissuade the Americans from this solution,” the analyst said.

At the same time, the expert considers further negotiations on a joint European missile defence system very important. According to him, sooner or later, the West should understand that Russia is not the enemy, but a strategic partner and ally.

Europeans themselves, according to the analyst, make a mistake by not participating in these discussions. It could help Europe to understand that along with the United States there is such a great and powerful in a particular area of military technology state as Russia, and that it may become a defender of Europe.

“Of course, it is necessary to cooperate with Russia, there is no alternative,” the expert concluded.

The issue of the missile defence system has been discussed by Russian and the US leaders since the end of 1960s. NATO joined the conversation in the end of 1990s.

Missile defence system in the US (NMD) is created, according to the US administration, to protect the country against nuclear missile attack of North Korea, Iran and Syria (previously Iraq and Libya were also mentioned).

Missile defence system created by the US includes a control center, stations and early warning satellites tracking the missile launch, station of guidance the interceptor missiles, launchers for derivation interceptors in space for destroying enemy ballistic missiles.

NATO’s Strategic Concept of 1999 indicates the need of missile defence against nuclear, biological and chemical threats for all NATO states.

It is expected that NATO states will provide detection tools and combat weapons systems, while NATO will develop the system and will facilitate the integration of all these components.

NATO considers that future cooperation with Russia in the sphere of missile defence may be in building two separate but interacting systems. In particular, cooperation with Russia on missile defence can be through information sharing and possible joint activities with a combination of features and capabilities of NATO missile defence system, available in Russia.

The Russian proposal includes cooperation in the “sectoral” form, where the parties are responsible for ballistic missiles defence of denoted geographic areas. Such a system provides a joint mechanism between Russia and NATO on threat assessment and decision-making.