Obama aide admits missile shield should worry Russia
Published: 02 May, 2009, 15:08
Prague protesters against US anti-missile radar, April 5, 2009 (AFP photo/Joe Klamar)
(19.4Mb) embed videoTAGS: Arms, Military, Russia, Politics, USA
A senior advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama says some of Russia's concerns over a proposed missile defence shield in Eastern Europe are “legitimate”.
Gary Samore, the U.S. coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy, said that missile defence becomes more strategically important as weapons agreements to reduce numbers of nuclear warheads come into effect.
Moscow strongly opposes U.S. and NATO plans for an anti-missile system based in Poland and The Czech republic.
The Bush administration maintained that the AMD project is aimed at so-called ‘rogue states’ such as Iran and North Korea, not Russia.
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This is simply the truth, and I am glad some in the US are accepting this. We have moved on from the position of a strike in retaliation, to the very real contempaltion of a first strike scenario. AMD is a very dangerous part of the the first strike principle. It creates the illusion that a fist strike would succeed, and thus lowers the threshold, by every deployment, for a first strike go ahead. Russia needs to be worried about this, and the USA too. No one, on any side, wants a dual exchange, and AMD is nudging us closer and closer to a military persuader being able to show, that a first strike scenario is possible. Imagine Colin Powell, going back to the UN to lie again about some acts which required a first strike. This could start a chain reaction of catastrophic proportions for all the worlds inhabitants. There is no doubt, that the real target of AMD is Russia, and some in the US can see this. It was a pure Bush initiative, as part of a longer first strike plan. Remember, it was always the intention of the US to unleash a nuclear attack on Russia, only its scientists and military have saved it, time and again. The wish of the US has never gone away, so we must make sure the response hasn't either. AMD is clouding the water, and making nuclear conflict more inevitable, because it will drive Russia into an unavoidable first strike doctrine in times of high political tension. No one needs or wants this, so we need get rid of the unilateral AMD concepts now, indeed the danger of AMD was contemplted in all previous arms negotiations. Yes, there are rogue states, however to deal with these, we need an equal coalition with shared assets and infrastructured, such that no one can turn the AMD into an asset against the other. The European AMD was at best a dual use AMD, against both Russia and rogue states, and at worst a cynical backdoor ant-Russian system. Both of these propositions are obviously unacceptable to Russia. I think some in the US are also realising the secret motivations of the Bush era and realising this dual use reality. So now it is time to talk about a real AMD system, with weak links and safeguards to prevent dual use,