AMERICAN ANTI-MISSILES IN EUROPE THREATEN EUROPE

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) - Western media reported that this May President George Bush received support from Prime Minister Tony Blair for the deployment of US anti-missiles PLV/EKV at the Fylingdales base in North Yorkshire. The missiles are to become part of the US NMD system and one of the elements to be deployed outside US territory.

The media stressed that Mr. Blair and Geoffrey Hoon, the secretary of state for defense, refrained from commenting on this news, but the Russian Foreign Ministry's press department did not hesitate to express its opinion. "We have no official information on this issue," said its statement. "But should the US and Britain make such joint decision, it would have been an alarming step towards the escalation of the NMD deployment."

Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, the vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems and a prominent critic of US and NATO policy, reacted even more harshly. He told news agencies, "By surrounding Russia with a network of ABM systems, the US expects not so much to down Russian missiles launched against the US in the event of war as to neutralize the retaliatory strike capability of Russia." The general believes that this will create conditions for the US to dictate its terms.

Russian Defense Ministry officials have yet not ventured any opinion, as Washington may view any statement about this new initiative from the Pentagon on the eve of presidential elections as an attempt to influence the free expression of the American people's will and to help, wittingly or unwittingly, one of the candidates, which is not on the Kremlin's agenda. But like General Ivashov, other Russian generals are not concealing their concern about America's intention to deploy anti-missiles and early warning radars close to Russia's borders.

The US administration invariably refutes the assumption that the plans for NMD deployment in Europe are directed against Moscow and its strategic deterrence forces. US officials explain them by the growing threat from Iran and North Korea. But specialists know that Tehran and Pyongyang are not in the equation: They do not have, and will hardly acquire in the next 40-50 years, missiles that can fly from the Korean peninsula or the Iranian plateau to America.

The reason is quite different, says Major General Vladimir Belous (Rtd.), a professor at the Academy of Military Sciences and prominent Russian expert on nuclear missiles. American military specialists make no secret of their belief that interception and destruction of missiles at the active phase of their trajectory over the territory of the potential adversary are the key element of any NMD system.

A strategic missile is most easily detected by space- and land-based reconnaissance systems at the launch phase, and it can be hit at the upward phase of the trajectory, before it goes supersonic. The upward phase of the trajectory for Russian missiles launched from nuclear submarines passes over North Atlantic, the Barents and White seas and the Arkhangelsk region, where the Russia's Plesetsk space center is located.

Judging by foreign press reports, it is against these areas that the US early warning radars stationed in Greenland, Britain, Norway, Lithuania and Estonia are directed. The anti-missiles which the Pentagon plans to deploy at the Fylingdales base and at bases in Poland and the Czech Republic will be used to intercept Russian missiles launched from the above zones, say Russian experts. Interestingly, these US plans were uncovered nearly a year before they appeared in the press.

"Accordingly, we can expect the creation of two new anti-missile bases outside the national territory of the US, which, owing to their geographical location, can pose a threat to the Russian nuclear deterrence potential," runs a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry's press department. According to it, "The US side has assured us that the US NMD system and its overseas bases are not targeted at Russia. However, we have not received to this day a reply to our question about guarantees of such 'non-targeting.' As long as we do not have the answer, Russia is bound to take into account a possible threat to its security."

It is clear how the US anti-missiles can threaten Russia's national security. General Ivashov and many other military experts who talked with this correspondent agree with the Foreign Ministry's conclusions. However, the Strategic Missile Force of Russia has many capabilities for evading interception and destruction over the national territory, they add.

Russia is too big for the PLV/EKV missiles to hit a Topol-M missile launched from Kartala in the Chelyabinsk region toward the Arctic and the Arctic Ocean. Likewise, the US missiles cannot intercept Russian missiles launched from a nuclear submarine deployed in the Arctic Ocean. Despite problems, the Russian nuclear missile forces can deliver a decapitating reply/retaliation strike, though we hope that it will never be necessary. The Kremlin will certainly "take the appropriate measures to ensure national security," the Foreign Ministry statement says.

What is worrying is that the leaders and the public of those countries where the Pentagon plans to deploy NMD elements should know that they endanger their countries by allowing others to deploy early warning radars and build anti-missile silos on their territory. Any rules of war, let alone the rules of a missile war, provide for the delivery of a first strike not at deep echelons of defense but at frontline defense systems. Only after neutralizing them can the attacking side move on, delivering strikes at communication and command centers, headquarters, arsenals and bases.

Other countries' missiles in one's territory, whatever their class, cannot bolster national security. On the contrary, they pose a direct threat to it, because they mean that the given country adds the coordinates of its homes to the flight tasks of others' missiles/strategists. It is unlikely that British and Polish citizens need this for a safer life.