Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to join President George W. Bush at Walker's Point, the Bush family's seaside estate, in Kennebunkport, Maine, this weekend for a short summer retreat. Both leaders will focus on the deployment of elements of a U.S. missile defense system, namely 10 missile interceptors in Poland and an early-warning radar in the Czech Republic.
President Putin, meanwhile, has proposed that Russia and the United States use the Moscow-controlled Gabala early-warning radar in Azerbaijan as an alternative to the European missile defense system. However, both the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department are skeptical about the Russian initiative. And the ball is now in President Bush's court.
General of the Army Yury Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff, said President Bush's reply to Moscow's proposal would reveal the United States' real goals concerning the deployment of its European missile defense system.
The Russian General Staff does not think that Washington will accept President Putin's proposal on the joint use of the Gabala radar. General Baluyevsky said the Bush administration had already decided to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe, and that the Russian initiative would not meet with a positive response.
Although the Gabala radar is not compatible with U.S. missile interceptors, Moscow says it could upgrade the installation, if necessary. However, the United States is not ready to accept President Putin's proposal because it would change the very essence of the missile defense system and would turn it into an international strategic instrument.
When interviewed by journalists about the European missile defense system's real capabilities, General Baluyevsky said U.S. companies viewed it as commercially attractive. He said that although the tremendous investment would not make the system completely reliable, there would be some technological spin-offs, as was the case with the seemingly adventurist Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
The current system might lead to another U.S. technological breakthrough, and that is the main stumbling block in the dialogue between Moscow and Washington concerning the creation of a virtually joint European missile defense system.
Instead of divulging its secrets to Russia, the United States would promise to share them with Moscow only after the missile defense system becomes operational. In fact, President Reagan had promised to do the same. The White House hopes that current and future technological breakthroughs would make it possible to create a reliable system for shielding the United States and its allies.
Although the Bush administration claims the system is designed for defense against countries with unstable and unpredictable regimes, such as North Korea and Iran, this broad interpretation may apply to some other states.
Because predictable political regimes may sometimes become unpredictable, Washington can therefore justify its decision to deploy permanent missile defense systems in Europe, Asia or anywhere else.
The Gabala radar simply does not conform to the Americans' logic, and the Russian General Staff's claims that no country, however powerful, can independently solve the problem of security has been called into question. Although Washington says it agrees with this statement, it does not want to scrap plans for a European missile defense shield.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Russian proposal was worth examining, but that the United States would continue doing what it deemed best for its security. She said Washington would not ask anyone's advice because “geometry and geography,” not national interests, determine how you intercept a missile.
The Russian General Staff said that Moscow was ready to respond to any threat to its national interests using political, diplomatic or military methods.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said during his visit to Moscow that Putin's initiative did not just call for the joint use of the Gabala radar. Scheffer did not elaborate, merely reminding journalists about the upcoming Russian-U.S. summit in Maine.
