Why Putin's objections to US missile defense plans may be valid

In warning the United States that Russia would respond with a new offensive weapons system if it proceeded with its current missile defense plans, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was merely invoking the logic that has underlay US-Russian arms control negotiations since their beginning in the Soviet era.

That logic, once referred to as the "balance of terror," requires that neither of the world's two biggest nuclear powers enjoys an unassailable advantage over the other. In other words, each should be equally capable of annihilating the other should nuclear war break out, and each should possess equal capacity to defend itself.

The Russians have historically seen missile defense - an area where the United States has invested much time and effort but Russia has not - as inherently undermining this logic, and nothing - not even the spread of nuclear weapons to countries that refuse to participate in the international nuclear arms control regime, such as North Korea - has yet persuaded the Russians to alter this view. That Putin has not called for an outright halt to U.S. missile defense plans demonstrates he does understand the threat posed by rogue states with nuclear weapons, but as the main thrust of both American and Russian nuclear strategy has been aimed at deterring the other superpower from using its weapons first, Russia remains concerned - and rightly so - that any missile defense, however well intentioned, would give American hawks less sympathetic to Russia freedom to indulge their thinking.

The Obama administration's announcement that it would scrap previous American plans to place missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe - an area Russia still considers part of its sphere of influence, much as the U.S. has regarded the entire Western Hemisphere ever since the Monroe Doctrine - should indicate to Putin that at least for now, the U.S. is serious about "pushing the reset button" on Russian-American relations, which had soured somewhat in the later years of President George W. Bush's second term. But as Russia cannot count on a friendly administration always being in place in Washington, it is behaving prudently when it vigilantly enforces the arms-control logic of parity.

Read this story for details on Putin's remarks at a Vladivostok news conference today (Tuesday, Dec. 28).

Written by Sandy Smith
HULIQ.com

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