Russia 'Retains Right' To Pre-Emptive Strike On Missile Shield

Published: 03 May, 2012, 13:49
Edited: 04 May, 2012, 07:34
Courtesy Of "Russia Today"

Russia is ready for a pre-emptive strike on European missile defense systems if the US refuses dialogue, stated Russia’s senior military official. Washington has responded by saying it doesn’t rule out giving Russia legally binding guarantees on AMB.

Russia is ready for a pre-emptive strike on European missile defense systems if the US refuses dialogue, stated Russia’s senior military official. Washington has responded by saying it doesn’t rule out giving Russia legally binding guarantees on AMB.

“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, US Special Envoy for Strategic Stability and Missile Defense, told reporters at the end of the first day of the Moscow ABM conference.

Earlier on Thursday Russia’s Chief of General Staff Nikolay Makarov stated that Russia might consider a pre-emptive strike an option in certain circumstances.

“Considering the destabilizing nature of the [American] ABM system, namely the creation of an illusion of inflicting a disarming [nuclear] strike with impunity, a decision on pre-emptive deployment of assault weapons could be taken when the situation gets harder,” Makarov said.

Among other measures, Russia has already promised to deploy short-range Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad Region if NATO fails to reach agreement with it on missile defense.

After Makarov`s remarks, the NATO delegation present at the conference hastened to take issue with the Russian general, saying that the ABM system would never target Russia.

Russia is concerned that the ultimate aim of America’s global ABM shield is the gradual diminution of the effectiveness of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Moscow says no country possesses any militarily significant quantity of nukes to pose a vital nuclear threat to the US other than Russia.

Vice chairman of the Polish foreign affairs committee Tadeusz Iwinski told RT a pre-emptive strike on Poland represented the “worst case scenario.”

Speaking as a representative of the Polish opposition, Iwinski, said an agreement between Russia and the United States was vital for his country’s security. He further claimed that US Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher “was ready to offer guarantees” that the ABM system“was not going to be against Russia.”

Political analyst Vladimir Orlov thinks that missile threats against Europe, which the shield is supposedly designed to counter, are “very much exaggerated.”

“Missile threats by those countries which Americans and Europeans claim develop long-range missiles, it is just not credible. Europe should not feel vulnerable and the issue is that Russia instead of Europe now feels vulnerable,” he asserted.

Moscow's proposition to develop a joint-European missile defense system has been turned down.

Political analyst Jan Tamas believes the generation of leaders in the Eastern European countries that want to join the US-led AMD system are still thinking in the terms of the Cold War. “They still have negative feelings towards Russia and are also partly afraid of Russia. They take this participation in the system as a sort of guarantee for their security,” he told RT.

“They don’t realize that this is not a guarantee but that it would actually make them a target.”

Also, the Obama administration refused to give cast-iron guarantees that the new ABM is not going to be deployed against Russia.

Bruce Gagnon from the 'Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space' think tank told RT the lack of guarantees reflects the US intention "to continue surrounding Russia and China with these so-called missile defense systems.”

Saying Iran has no missiles capable of hitting the United States, Gagnon says the system is aimed at Russia because it has “the world’s largest supply of natural gas.” He further argues “the Pentagon’s primary job today is to serve as a resource extraction service on behalf of corporate globalization.”

'Heading Towards A Dead End'

The Russian Defense Ministry has organized a representational international conference called “Missile Defense Factor in Establishing New Security Environment” on May 3-4 in Moscow to correlate positions of many interested states on the burning issue of missile defense.

Over 200 experts from military departments of 50 countries, including 28 NATO states, have gathered in the Russian capital to share opinions.

Opening the conference, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov stated that so far no mutually-acceptable solution to the issue of ABM has been found.

“The situation is practically heading towards a dead end,” acknowledged Servdyukov.

At the same time, the Russian president sent an address to the conference, sharing hope that a solution can be found.

“I believe we can find a formula which could help us avoid the division into those who win and those who lose,”President Medvedev insists.

The conference consists of several working groups. Russia’s Ministry of Defense is going to present a computer model of how the American ABM in Europe is going to influence Russia’s forces of nuclear containment.

Besides Russia and NATO member countries, experts from China, South Korea, Japan and CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) member states will participate in the Moscow conference.

As a goodwill gesture, Russia wants to make an excursion for the delegates to the heart of Moscow’s A-135 ABM system near the Russian capital.

No official documents are going to be signed as a result of the ABM conference in Moscow.

A Nuclear Nightmare in the Making

NATO, Missile Defense and Russian Insecurity 

By David Krieger and Steven Starr 
January 03, 2012 
Courtesy Of "Waging Peace"

In the aftermath of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has become increasingly powerful.  It was created in 1949 as an alliance of Western military forces to protect against the perceived military threat posed by the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO has expanded by adding former Soviet bloc countries, moving to the borders of Russia.  It has also engaged in military actions, notably in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya.

For the past several years, the US and NATO have been pursuing the deployment of an integrated missile defense system in Western, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well as in surrounding waters.  The Russians have protested vigorously that the planned system will undermine its nuclear retaliatory potential and thereby its security.  The United States, the driving force behind NATO missile defense plans, has repeatedly told the Russian leaders that there is no need to be worried about these deployments since they are designed to counter Iranian missiles rather than Russian ICBMs.

The US has refused, however, to provide Russia with written assurances that the missile defense system is not directed at Russia. Accordingly, Russia has rejected US verbal assurances and has threatened to deploy its own missiles aimed at the NATO missile defense installations. Russia has also threatened to withdraw from New START, an agreement with the US to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons and delivery systems in the arsenals of both countries. 

The American Ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, with cold indifference to Russian concerns, recently stated, “Whether Russia likes it or not, we are about defending NATO-European territory against a growing ballistic missile threat.  We will adapt the timing and the details to that threat, which is why the focus of our joint effort ought to be about how to figure out how to reduce that threat rather than trying to threaten and retaliate for a deployment that has nothing to do with Russia.”

Suppose for a moment that the situation were reversed, and that it was Russia who had formed another NATO, a North American Treaty Organization.  Russia leads this military alliance with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico and various other Central American and Caribbean states.  The Russian/NATO states all shared the same military communication and weapons systems, and had previously fought several wars in South America.

Imagine that, through this alliance, Russia begins deployment of an integrated missile defense system right up to the borders to the US, as well as on naval vessels positioned off the East and West coasts of the United States.  Russia states the purpose of this system, which surrounds most of the continental US, is to protect against a possible missile launch from Canada.  The US protests that the deployment of such a missile defense system would undermine its retaliatory potential and thereby its security.  Concerned about the vulnerability of its nuclear forces, the US then threatens to target the Russian missile defenses and to withdraw from New START.  Instead of taking US security concerns seriously, a Russian ambassador says, “Whether the US likes it or not, we are about defending NATO-American concerns.”

This is a dangerous scenario, no matter which NATO we are talking about, the real one or the hypothetical one.  Continued US indifference to Russian security concerns could have dire consequences: a breakdown in US-Russian relations; regression to a new nuclear-armed standoff in Europe; Russian withdrawal from New START; a new nuclear arms race between the two countries; a breakdown of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty leading to new nuclear weapon states; and a higher probability of nuclear weapons use by accident or design.  This is a scenario for nuclear disaster, and it is being provoked by US hubris in pursuing missile defenses, a technology that is unlikely ever to be effective, but which Russian leaders must view in terms of a worst-case scenario.

In the event of increased US-Russian tensions, the worst-case scenario from the Russian perspective would be a US first-strike nuclear attack on Russia, taking out most of the Russian nuclear retaliatory capability.  The Russians believe the US would be emboldened to make a first-strike attack by having the US-NATO missile defense installations located near the Russian border, which the US could believe capable of shooting down any Russian missiles that survived its first-strike attack.

The path to a US-Russian nuclear war could also begin with a conventional military confrontation via NATO. The expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia has created the potential for a local military conflict with Russia to quickly escalate into a nuclear war.  It is now Russian policy to respond with tactical nuclear weapons if faced with overwhelmingly superior conventional forces, such as those of NATO.   In the event of war, the “nuclear umbrella” of NATO guarantees that NATO members will be protected by US nuclear weapons that are already forward-based in Europe.

Shortly after President Obama came into office, he said in Prague, “The US seeks the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  If he has any intention of making that dream a reality, he had better instruct the US government to work with the Russians in a way that does not undermine their security, or perceived security, which, from the Russian perspective, is essentially the same. 

The only security that can exist in the Nuclear Age is common security.  An imbalance in security, or perceptions of security, threatens not only the weaker party, but all parties.  NATO missile defense plans have created greater insecurity for Russia, which has set in motion Russian counteractions that are reducing security for the US, NATO and the world.  Two solutions exist: either eliminate US-NATO European missile defense; or allow Russia to become a full-partner in the planning and operation the missile defense deployments.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Steven Starr is an Associate of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Senior Scientist for Physicians for Social Responsibility. He maintains a website on the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war (www.nucleardarkness.org).

The Mystery Of Missile Defence

After The Latest Failed Missile Defence Tests, Critics Wonder Why The US Has Spent $100bn On The System.

By Chris Arsenault
Last Modified: 17 Dec 2010 22:45 GMT
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

The cold war ended two decades ago, but dreams of an impenetrable missile shield from Ronald Reagan - who once called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" - are firmly back on the US national security agenda.

Late on Wednesday, the US tested its newest round of interceptors, spending $100m to blast a missile from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean towards California.

The anti-ballistic missile system failed, as the kill vehicle designed to blow the projectile out of the sky missed its target, adding to a long-list of unsuccessful tests for the expensive weaponisation scheme.

Since the end of the cold war the US has spent "approximately $100bn" on missile defence systems, Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defence Agency, told Al Jazeera.

Wednesday’s failed long-range test was important because it involved an attempt to intercept a dummy warhead, rather than the usual testing scheme of just maneuvering the missile to a particular point in space, said Ian Anthony, the research coordinator for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think-tank in Sweden.

Big Bucks

Despite constant technological problems with the system, the White House has requested $9.9bn for missile defence programmes for the next fiscal year (2011), Anthony told Al Jazeera.

Those vast sums of money concern Theodore Postol, a professor of science and international security at MIT and a former scientific adviser to the head of US naval operations. The weapons expert, hardly a liberal dove, just doesn’t believe missile defence can work technologically.

"If you look at it as an engineering and defence enterprise, it makes no sense," Postol told Al Jazeera.

Technological failures and massive financial costs aside, if Barack Obama, the US president, is serious about reducing the possibility of nuclear war, then it seems developing new missile systems isn’t the best way to inspire international trust.

"The US will always say that missile defence is a defensive system," said Tom Sauer, a professor of international relations at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. "The problem is that the Russians or Chinese may perceive it as threatening or offensive. When it comes to missile defence, perspective is everything."

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister and a former KGB agent who is well versed in cold war history, called US plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe "very similar" to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.

"The Bush administration planned to have a radar station in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland," Dr. Sauer said. Obama has not ended the missile programme in Eastern Europe, he has just amended it slightly.

"[Current] plans call for deployment of land-based SM-3 interceptors [a modified surface to air missile] in Poland and Romania to defend Europe against short to medium range ballistic missiles," said Missile Defense Agency spokesman Lehner.

Washington Hard-Liners

But even though the US and its NATO partners plan on erecting shields in former Soviet bloc countries, defence hawks in Washington are not happy.

"The Obama administration is pursuing this reset policy with Russia. As far as I can tell, it has been completely one sided with Russia pocketing all of the gains," said Baker Spring, a security expert with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

The US and Russia have negotiated a new nuclear arms reduction treaty refered to as START, limiting the former cold war rivals to 1,550 warheads and 700 launchers each, enough to destroy the world several times over.

Some Republicans Senators including John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) have said arms reduction could limit US missile defence plans and plan to vote against it.

But blaming weaponisation programmes on Republican hawks would not be historically accurate. The Democratic administration of former US president Bill Clinton pursued a plan to launch 1000 missile interceptors into space, under its Strategic Defence Initiative, which critics call "star-wars".

"We think the [Obama] administration’s programme should include that," the Heritage Foundation’s Spring told Al Jazeera.

Postol laughs when asked about the Heritage Foundation, calling them "ideologues" who don’t understand the 

science behind the military programmes that they support.

'Disappointed In Obama'

But, like the Heritage Foundation, the MIT professor and former naval adviser is also critical of Obama.

"The Obama administration is making false claims about the technical capabilities of missile defence, like the Bush administration before it. As someone who supported Obama, I find this very disappointing," Postol said. 

Unsurprisingly, Lehner from the Missile Defense Agency thinks the programme is technically sound, despite Wednesday’s failed tests.

"In total, we have had 46 successful intercepts in 58 tests since the integration of the BMDS [a ballistic missile defence system contracted to Boeing] in 2001," he said.

But Postol says the tests themselves are "basically rigged" with "minimal standards applied to the contractors of what constitutes success". 

There are different kinds of systems designed to deal with short, medium or long range attacks. A basic premise behind missile defence is the idea of hitting a bullet with a bullet, either near the earth’s surface - like the patriot missile defences used in the 1991 Gulf War - or other systems designed to hit missiles high in the atmosphere, or outer-space, where intercontinental ballistic missiles fly.

"The fact that these systems try to operate at these high altitudes makes them vulnerable to simple countermeasures," Postol said, citing ballons or decoy projectiles which are cheap, simple and effective ways to trick missile defences. "Nobody has been able to come up with an explanation of why the concerns I have raised are not true."

'Military-Industrial Complex'

North Korea and Iran, states cited by the US as justification for missile defence, can easily deploy counter-measures rendering the advanced technology useless, said Sauer, the international relations professor.

So, if the technology doesn’t work, what is driving the programme?

Postol chalks it up to domestic politics in the US, coupled with a desire to appease America from Europe. 

Republicans support the technology, even though they don't understand how it works, he says, while democrats don’t want to be called wimps on national security.

NATO, which has been dangling without a clear raison d’etre since the end of the cold war, incorporated missile defence as a new mission at its most recent summit in Lisbon, Portugul.

Sauer agrees that partisan politics in the US play a role, but says the costly scheme speaks to something more profound than bickering between Democrats and their Republican counterparts. After all, the Clinton administration resurrected the programme which could have disappeared after the cold war.

Boeing, a primary contractor for missile defence systems, maintains operations in all fifty US States. Thus, if an unsuccessful weapons programme is cancelled, local politicans will rally to protect it, for fear of losing local jobs and votes, Sauer said.

"Many representatives in Congress would like to see more money for these programmes, they are part of the military industrial complex," Sauer said.

"It is basically a job creation programme in the US." 

US consolidates Global Missile Shield

"For all the talk of protecting the U.S. Mainland from alleged Iranian and North Korean missile threats - accusations that are in the first case absurd and in the second highly improbable - at the end of the day Washington and its military allies around the world are well on the way to encircling Russia, China and Iran with an insurmountable barrier of interceptor missile deployments in conjunction with the militarization of space and the Prompt Global Strike program. Neither those three nations nor any other outside the rapidly expanding U.S. global military nexus will be permitted to retain effective deterrence or retaliation capabilities."

By Rick Rozoff
(Wednesday, August 4, 2010)
Courtesy Of "Media Monitors"

"For all the talk of protecting the U.S. Mainland from alleged Iranian and North Korean missile threats - accusations that are in the first case absurd and in the second highly improbable - at the end of the day Washington and its military allies around the world are well on the way to encircling Russia, China and Iran with an insurmountable barrier of interceptor missile deployments in conjunction with the militarization of space and the Prompt Global Strike program. Neither those three nations nor any other outside the rapidly expanding U.S. global military nexus will be permitted to retain effective deterrence or retaliation capabilities."

On September 17, 2009 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President Barack Obama separately announced plans to shift the emphasis of the global American interceptor missile - so-called missile shield or anti-ballistic missile defense - project from the previous George W. Bush administration's plans to a more mobile, flexible and geographically broader system. [1]

The proposed deployments of ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a forward-based X-band radar installation in the Czech Republic were abandoned in favor of what Obama deemed "stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America's allies." Both Poland and the Czech Republic, however, remain part of Pentagon plans and will be incorporated into a broader grid with all 28 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which in its final stage will cover all of Europe. Or at least the entire continent west of Russia and Belarus.

Plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland alarmed Russia, which necessarily saw them as aimed at itself, but would also have been housed in fixed silos that made them easy targets.

In the month before the announced change in American plans to begin the incremental buildup of a missile shield in Eastern Europe - phased adaptive approach in government terms - a report surfaced at the annual U.S. Space and Missile Defense Conference of the Boeing Company planning a 47,500-pound mobile interceptor missile launcher to be deployed within 24 hours to NATO bases in Europe. [2] During the same month the Missile Defense Agency and Boeing also announced the successful test of their joint Airborne Laser (ABL) anti-missile system [3].

At the end of last August the first disclosure appeared of plans to expand U.S. interceptor missile deployments to the Balkans and the Black Sea region, Israel and Turkey. [4] The head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, said at the time that he supported the installation of Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors in the Balkans and Turkey. (In 2007 his predecessor, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, mentioned placing U.S. interceptor missile radar sites in the Caucasus and even Ukraine.)

The SM-3 is a ship-based anti-ballistic missile and anti-satellite interceptor - used to destroy an American satellite in orbit over the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008 - and part of the U.S. and allied Aegis ballistic missile defense system. It has the main advantage of being deployable around the world on destroyers and cruisers. What O'Reilly was referring to, though, was a combination of sea-based SM-3s and their adaptation for use on land.

In describing current U.S. missile shield plans last September, Pentagon chief Gates spoke of a four-phase program that began with the deployment of Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3s in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea last year, to be followed by enhanced versions of the missile both on sea and land, with successive generations of more advanced models in the third and fourth stage.

This February plans to station land-based SM-3s in Bulgaria and Romania were announced [5], and when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in the latter's nation early last month to sign an amended agreement on interceptor missile cooperation, it was revealed that SM-3s will be stationed in Poland in the second phase of the Pentagon's plan for a continent-wide interceptor system. [6] Slightly more than a month before, the U.S. moved Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors and approximately 100 troops into eastern Poland, only a few kilometers from Russia's Kaliningrad exclave. [7] U.S. deployments in the country are also part of a broader NATO strategy. [8]

Connecting the ship- and land-based components of the global U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe with other locations to the east and the south, the Pentagon has also been qualitatively expanding Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Standard Missile-3 deployments in the Persian Gulf. Washington is now preparing to provide Gulf Arab states with the longer-range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile intercept system. [9]

Last October and November the U.S. and Israel conducted the fourteen-day Juniper Cobra 10 exercise with five missile interception systems, the largest such live-fire maneuvers ever held. An American military officer present at the war games said the unparalleled drills would "help the development of a planned NATO missile shield for Europe.” [10] A year before, the U.S. deployed an X-band missile shield radar (Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance) to Israel with 120 troops, the first and to date only long-term foreign troop deployment in Israel's history.

Washington and NATO are well advanced in solidifying an impenetrable interceptor missile system from the Baltic Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

In the past few days further details have emerged concerning the expansion of those plans in both breadth and sophistication.

On August 30 Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas announced that "his government has been negotiating a plan with the United States to place a warning center in the Czech Republic as part of a reworked U.S. missile defense plan." He also stated that personnel manning the facility could be provided by the U.S. and other NATO states and that the site could even be based in his nation's capital, Prague. Necas added, "The U.S. plans to initially invest $2 million in 2011 and 2012 for the center, which is expected to become part of a joint NATO missile defense shield in the future," [11] and that no new treaty with Washington would be required for the project. Czech popular opposition to the earlier plan for an X-band missile defense installation was credited for the U.S. discarding the Bush-era plan.

Two days afterward Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra confirmed that the U.S. had allotted $2 million for the construction of the facility, that American experts would be deployed there and that it would be in operation by the middle of next year. Vondra added, "I believe it will be one of many parts of the NATO system...." [12]

In August of last year the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza revealed that the U.S. would expand its interceptor missile plans to the Balkans, Israel and Turkey. This August the Washington Post belatedly confirmed that design.

An article by staff writer Craig Whitlock appeared in the August 1 Sunday edition of the newspaper which quoted several U.S. military officials to the effect that:

"The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe....

"Pentagon officials said they are nearing a deal to establish a key radar ground station, probably in Turkey or Bulgaria. Installation of the high-powered X-band radar would enable the first phase of the shield to become operational next year.

"At the same time, the U.S. military is working with Israel and allies in the Persian Gulf to build and upgrade their missile defense capabilities. The United States installed a radar ground station in Israel in 2008 and is looking to place another in an Arab country in the gulf region."

Not substituting for deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic, as has been seen above, but adapting and extending the network of which they are a part southward and eastward.

The Washington Post feature added that although the interceptor missile projects in Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf are technically distinct, "they are all designed to plug into command-and-control systems operated by, or with, the U.S. military. The Israeli radar, for example, is operated by U.S. personnel and is already functional, feeding information to U.S. Navy ships operating in the Mediterranean."

Providing historical perspective and dispelling the prevalent notion that the current administration's plans are in any manner a retreat from those of its predecessor, the piece stated:

"The concept of a missile shield began with former president Ronald Reagan, who first described his vision of a defense against a Soviet nuclear attack in his 'Star Wars' speech in 1983....It has expanded further under President Obama, despite the skepticism he expressed during the 2008 campaign about the feasibility and affordability of Bush's plan for a shield in Europe.

"In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush's approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020." [13]

The author provided these additional details:

Starting late last year the U.S. has steadily deployed Aegis class warships in the Mediterranean Sea equipped with Spy-1 360 degree missile radar and "arsenals of Standard Missile-3 interceptors [which] will form the backbone of Obama's shield in Europe."

The initial detachments, one or two destroyers and cruisers at a time, will be tripled in number. Furthermore, "the Obama administration has plans to nearly double its number of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defenses, to 38 by 2015."

Citing the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Henry B. Harris Jr., the Washington Post article stated that one "option would be to assign some Aegis ships to home ports in Europe instead of making them sail constantly back and forth to the United States.

"Other Navy officials have floated the idea of flying in fresh crews so a ship could more or less deploy continuously, obviating the need for long breaks."

It then supplied further specifics, disclosing that "Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with...high-power radar planned for southern Europe."

Romania will host land-based Standard Missile-3 deployments and Poland will follow as the site of SM-3s and additional sensors.

Although as recently as last year the Pentagon envisioned a total of 147 SM-3s, the Obama administration intends to nearly triple that number to 436. The new strategy "will require an unspecified number of new SM-3 missiles, which cost between $10 million and $15 million apiece."

The system will expand in earnest after the NATO summit in Portugal in November, when the U.S.'s 27 members in the military bloc are expected to endorse a comprehensive, layered, mobile interceptor missile system for the entire European continent, albeit still firmly under U.S. control.

The Missile Defense Agency's O'Reilly "said combined defenses would feature the best of both worlds: an 'upper layer' framework of SM-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors, operated by the United States, that could shoot down enemy missiles in space or the upper atmosphere; and a 'lower layer' of Patriot batteries, operated by European allies, providing a second layer of defense closer to the ground." [14]

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles have a longer range than both the PAC-3 and SM-3 and had not been discussed before as part of the new system.

Regarding the placement of U.S. and NATO interceptor missiles in Romania, on the Black Sea across from southwestern Russia, a recent analysis examined the geopolitical consequences:

"This means that the U.S. front line of defense is shifting from the eastern border of Germany to the Black Sea, which is adjacent to the Middle East, the Caucasus and Russia.

"Romania is ready to accept deployment of 20 SM-3 anti-ballistic missile units, currently installed on American naval vessels with the Aegis Combat System. These missiles could later be replaced with the more advanced terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) missiles. They will also be deployed in Bulgaria. Meanwhile, it has become more likely that the X-band radar system, which the U.S. originally planned to install in the Czech Republic, will be set up in Israel." [15]

Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov was summoned to Washington for six days starting in late June for "the launch of technical negotiations about NATO's missile defence in Europe in general" [16] and meetings with Defense Secretary Gates, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher, the last-named the key point person in securing U.S. missile shield deployments in Eastern Europe.

Angelov was given his marching orders and returned home to confirm that his nation will join the U.S. interceptor missile program in Europe (and beyond) and that "Bulgaria is participating actively in the discussions and the practical realization of all steps concerning the establishment of a NATO-wide missile defense system.” [17]

For domestic consumption he presented the decision as his country's own - “We are the most interested state in Europe in the establishment of a missile shield because we are in the most threatened region – we fall within the range of ballistic missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles [such] as the ones employed by the states in the wider Middle East” - but since Bulgaria was incorporated into NATO in 2004 it now receives orders from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon.

In a recent report that 700 Bulgarian combat troops have been ordered to Afghanistan (as Dutch troops have left), a leading local news agency demonstrated how such decisions are made: "Bulgaria's center-right government, elected last July, initially said it would not be able to provide more forces in Afghanistan due to the economic crisis, but later changed its strategy under pressure from the United States and NATO." [18]

The same relationship of supremacy and subordination obtains between the U.S. and all other NATO members, particularly the twelve new acquisitions in Eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea.

The Pentagon has secured seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania since the latter two states joined NATO in 2004. Those sites include the Bezmer Air Base in Bulgaria, fifty kilometers from the Black Sea, and the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania near the city of Constanta on the Black Sea. Both are being upgraded to strategic air bases which, already employed for the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, are available for strikes against Iran and in the South Caucasus in the event of an equivalent of the Georgian-Russian war of two years ago. The Romanian base is the main headquarters for the Pentagon's Joint Task Force-East.

At any given time there are several thousand U.S. troops in Bulgaria and Romania, the first foreign forces in Bulgaria since shortly after the end of World War Two and in Romania since 1962.

A comparable situation exists in Poland. An American military newspaper recently ran a feature on the deployment of Patriot missile batteries in the country called "U.S. Army's presence in Poland most significant since World War II" in which an American Army spokesman stated, "We have between 80 and 150 troops going there on a regular basis. We've never had that number and for that long of a period." No foreign troops had been stationed in Poland since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991.

The article also stated that "For the first time since the end of World War II, U.S. Army soldiers are making regular rotations into Poland, this time to train its forces to use Patriot missiles.

"Forty miles from the Russian border, a small group of U.S. Army Europe soldiers is instructing the Polish military about the missiles, which are designed to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft." [19]

A Fox News report characterized the operation as "the first long-term U.S. troop presence...in Poland," and quoted U.S. ambassador to the nation Lee Feinstein as maintaining "It's U.S. boots on the ground, a very tangible symbol of the U.S.-Polish alliance." [20]

Regarding Israel, where the U.S. has also deployed the first foreign troops on that country's soil, in late July the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense added $95.7 million to a White House funding request for Tel Aviv's long-range Arrow and medium-range David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile programs subsumed under the Iron Dome layered air and missile defense system. Abiding by the subcommittee's recommendations, Congress will allot $422.7 million for the above purpose for next year (with $109 million for the Arrow 3 system), bringing total U.S. underwriting of Israeli interceptor missile programs to $1 billion over the past four years.

According to member of the subcommittee Congressman Steve Rothman, “Given the concern and attention that we are focusing now on every dollar we are expending on behalf of the US taxpayer for all purposes, including the defense of the United States and its allies, it is a mark of the importance of these projects that they were all funded so robustly and fully by our subcommittee.” [21]

By absorbing most all of Eastern Europe into NATO, the U.S. has also provided its Israeli ally access to air bases and training sites of strategic significance for future attacks on neighboring Middle East nations. On July 29 Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i stated, "We fly in Romania so we can act deep inside neighboring Arab states." [22]

The more extended and flexible, the "stronger, smarter and swifter" U.S. missile strategy, then, pursues a trajectory from the Baltic Sea, with Standard Missile-3-equipped Aegis warships also available for service in the Norwegian and Barents Seas, to Southeastern Europe into the South Caucasus, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, covering Russia's western and southern flanks and encroaching upon Iran.

When President Obama visits India in November he intends to secure billions of dollars in arms deals with the world's second most populous nation.

On July 12 Russia's Vzglyad newspaper reported that "The deal, if signed during Obama's visit, would [have] the US replace Russia as India's biggest arms supplier...adding that the deal would also help India curb China's rise.

"India's shortlist includes Patriot defense systems, Boeing mid-air refueling tankers and certain types of howitzers, and the total cost of the deal may exceed $10 billion...." [23].

By selling anti-ballistic missile systems to India - starting with Patriots and advancing to longer-range models - Washington will connect its missile interception network from Europe through the Middle East to its eastern wing, that which includes 26 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska, a 280-foot-tall, 50,000-pound sea-based X-band radar in the Aleutian Islands, and PAC-3, SM-3 and THAAD missiles in Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Current U.S.-China tensions, the worst in several decades, were triggered early this year when Washington confirmed it was providing Taiwan with 200 advanced Patriot missiles and warships capable of being upgraded for the Aegis Combat System. [24]

For all the talk of protecting the U.S. Mainland from alleged Iranian and North Korean missile threats - accusations that are in the first case absurd and in the second highly improbable - at the end of the day Washington and its military allies around the world are well on the way to encircling Russia, China and Iran with an insurmountable barrier of interceptor missile deployments in conjunction with the militarization of space and the Prompt Global Strike program. Neither those three nations nor any other outside the rapidly expanding U.S. global military nexus will be permitted to retain effective deterrence or retaliation capabilities.

Notes:

[1]. U.S. Missile Shield Plans: Retreat Or Advance?
http://tinyurl.com/ycnwkje

U.S. Missile Shield System Deployments: Larger, Sooner, Broader
http://tinyurl.com/ydsxtsu

[2]. Pentagon Intensifies Plans For Global Military Supremacy: U.S., NATO Could Deploy Mobile Missiles Launchers To Europe
http://tinyurl.com/27ypyx6

[3]. U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
http://tinyurl.com/yfoy5k7

[4]. U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans, September 11, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/y978s8n

[5]. Romania: U.S. Expands Missile Shield Into Black Sea
http://tinyurl.com/26u7g85

[6]. Clinton Renews U.S. Claims On Former Soviet Space
http://tinyurl.com/27ro4jn

[7]. Poland: U.S. Moves First Missiles, Troops Near Russian Border
http://tinyurl.com/284kzqs

[8]. Rasmussen In Poland: Expeditionary NATO, Missile Shield And Nuclear Weapons
http://tinyurl.com/27vlkcd

[9]. U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
http://tinyurl.com/yhhngsv

[10]. Israel: Forging NATO Missile Shield, Rehearsing War With Iran
http://tinyurl.com/ydq6z57

[11]. Associated Press, July 30, 2010

[12]. Czech News Agency, August 1, 2010

[13]. Washington Post, August 1, 2010

[14]. Ibid

[15]. Japan Times/Sentaku Mazagine, July 26, 2010, Black Sea, Caucasus: U.S. Moves Missile Shield South And East
http://tinyurl.com/24qe7un

[16]. Sofia News Agency, June 29, 2010

[17]. Sofia News Agency, July 9, 2010

[18]. Sofia News Agency, July 30, 2010

[19]. Stars and Stripes, July 23, 2010

[20]. Fox News, July 13, 2010

[21]. Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2010

[22]. Jerusalem Post, July 30, 2010

[23]. Global Times, July 13, 2010

[24]. U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
http://tinyurl.com/ybf9mep

Pentagon To Continue Developing Weapons After Ratification Of START

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2010; A02
Courtesy Of "The Washington Post"

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told lawmakers Thursday that the United States continues to encourage Russia to join a European missile-defense system intended to counter the threat posed by Iranian missiles. He also sought to reassure Republicans that the United States would not agree to Russian efforts to limit the U.S. missile-defense capability.

"Whatever talks are going on are simply about trying to elicit their [Russian] willingness to partner with us, along with the Europeans, in terms of a regional missile defense," Gates said, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee to support ratification of the recently signed U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. "But there is nothing in the approaches that have been made to the Russians that in any way, shape or form would impose any limits whatsoever on our plans."

Gates was responding to a question from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) about a press report of secret negotiations with Moscow involving missile defense.

Republican senators have voiced concerns that the new treaty limits U.S. missile defense programs, a theme repeated at other hearings as the administration works to gain GOP support to reach the 67 votes needed for ratification.

The treaty's critics on the missile defense issue have focused on three items: the preamble, which refers to a relationship between offensive and defensive weapons; anarticle that bars using current land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles as launchers for defensive missile interceptors; and a unilateral statement by Russia, in which it reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if there were a quantitative and qualitative buildup of U.S. missile defenses.

At Thursday's session, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), ranking Republican on the committee, said he needs "to be confident that the treaty in no way limits the administration's ability and willingness to deploy missile defense capabilities, regardless of the statements made by the Russian government."

Gates sought to ease McCain's concern. "The Russians can say what they want. If it's not in the treaty, it's not binding on the United States," he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who also appeared at the hearing, pointed out that Russia remained part of the original START agreement even after the administration of President George W. Bush withdrew from a missile-defense pact. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers the U.S. had no intention of using current ICBM launchers as part of any missile defense system, arguing that the treaty article had no impact on the program.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) called the missile-defense issue more important than the agreement on nuclear weapons because of the threats from a nuclear-armed rogue nation or terrorist group. He sought an assurance that 10 years from now, the United States would deploy a missile interceptor in the planned European system that could knock down an ICBM even if the Russians objected.

Gates assured Chambliss that he would recommend deploying the interceptor, "especially if we're unsuccessful in stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons."

Do Scud Missiles Really Matter?

By Ren Ke
May 15, 2010
Courtesy Of "Xin Hua Net"

BEIRUT, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Since last month when Israel accused Syria of transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah, the issue has not yet ended.

The United Sates renewed its sanctions against Syria last week, and later on Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama asked the Congress to approve 205 million U.S. dollars to help Israel deploy an anti-missile defense system, saying that the president recognizes the threat missiles and rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Do The Scud Missiles Really Matter For The Regional Balance Of Power?

Analysts said Hezbollah has already had different long-range missiles so that Scuds are not so important for the party, and the issue is just a Syrian backfired game and Israeli tactics of diverting the international community's attention from the Jewish settlement projects and the stalled Middle East peace process.

SCUD MISSILES AND HEZBOLLAH'S ARSENAL

Scud is a series of tactical ballistic missiles deployed by the former Soviet Union since the 1960's. It became world wide famous in the 1991 Gulf War when Saddam Hussein's army launched almost 80 Scud missiles to its neighboring countries, but many of them were intercepted by the U.S.-made Patriot anti-missiles systems.

In the history of half a century, Scud missiles varied into four different types, with the ranges from 180 km to 550 km, and the payloads from 600 kg to 985 kg.

Although it is of high mobility as carried by vehicles, its big size, almost 12 meters long, make it easily found by high definition reconnaissance satellites.

When Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Syria of providing Scud missiles to Hezbollah, all the politicians in Lebanon denied the charges. Lebanese army chief Jean Kawaghi said that such a big missiles cannot be hidden or smuggled.

Hezbollah never comment on its weaponry, they always keep silent.

Amine Hoteit, a retired Lebanese general and now an independent security analyst, told Xinhua that Hezbollah did not need Scud missiles to hit Israel.

He added Hezbollah sources told him that the party has already had missiles with minimum ranges of 265 km, which can hit most of Israel's strategically important places.

Hezbollah's General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel in February that if it attacks Lebanon, the party will retaliate to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

Israel estimates that Hezbollah now has more than 40,000 different types of missiles, most of which are reportedly deployed in the Shiite-inhabited south Lebanon, from where Tel Aviv is only 130 km away, and Jerusalem 150 km.

"Scud is not the point. We cannot say Hezbollah has Scud missiles or not, but we can say the party has the ability to attack most part of Israel in the next war," said Hoteit.

During the last war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah fired some 4, 000 rockets into northern Israel during the war, most of them the Soviet-made shorter range (20 km) 122 mm BM-21 models nicknamed Katyusha. They also fired a few longer range rockets at urban areas, and the larger warheads did a lot of damage and caused some casualties.

During the war, Hezbollah has reportedly acquired Iranian-made surface-to-surface missiles, namely Zelzal-2. Its accuracy is under 100 meters at their maximum range, which is estimated to be about 200 km, putting Tel Aviv within its range. Israeli Air Force during the war paid careful attention to hitting Zelzals, and has destroyed at least a dozen of them.

Perhaps Hezbollah has something else. Last week, the head of Israel's military intelligence research department, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz said that Syria had also supplied M600 SS missiles, a Syrian copy of the Iranian Fateh-110, with 300-km range.

Hoteit said that Hezbollah's weapons play an important role in the regional balance of power. "If Hezbollah is strong, the war will be far away, but if the party is weak, the war will come tomorrow."

A BACKFIRED SYRIAN GAME?

Syria lost points in the aftermath of the Scud missiles issue, as the United States renewed its sanctions against Damascus for one more year, saying it supported terrorist groups and was pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

The White House will also help Israel deploy the Iron Dome anti- missile system, designed to intercept rockets with ranges between 5 and 70 km and artillery shells.

Hilal Khashan, chair of department of political studies and public administration at the American University of Beirut, said that now the United States has no longer discuss Scud missiles issues, as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently accused Syria of arming Hezbollah with sophisticated weaponry, without naming Scuds.

"Whether the Syrians have delivered the scuds or not is no longer the issue. The issue is what Hezbollah already has," Khashan said.

Khashan said that it was a backfired game played by the Syrians.

Israel's accusation is based on the satellite images that showed Syrian military transporters shipping Scud missiles in the direction of Lebanese border, so they assumed that Hezbollah received Scud missiles from Syria.

Khashan believed that the missiles are still inside Syria but along the Lebanese border.

"Israel thinks the missiles will change the regional balance of power. Syrians are politically acute, so that they will not commit such a blunder. They would not cross such violation from which they will pay heavily from Israel," said Khashan.

"The issue is that Syrians played a game, they want to create a controlled crisis to get the United States to engage and talk to Syrians," said Khashan.

Syria has long been suffering from stalled economic situations due to U.S. sanctions. Damascus longs for opportunities to reconcile with the United States, and indeed they were once coming closer.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the New Yorker published in February that Syria has renewed its sharing of intelligence on terrorism with the CIA and with Britain's MI6. The first U.S. ambassador to Syria since 2005 was also nominated by Obama in February, but recently the U.S. Congress held confirmation hearings.

Syria wants reconcile with U.S. with a controlled crisis, but unfortunately it has backfired on itself. Khashan said the Americans no longer brought issue of Hezbollah's Scud missiles, they brought Hezbollah's missile arsenal.

Hezbollah has constantly said its arsenal will not be discussed, as they will use it to defend Lebanon against any Israeli attacks. Syria, the party's backer beside Iran, does not want to see this as Hezbollah is Damascus' important counterweight to Israel.

Hoteit said the issue is also a wise move of Israel, which came after ties between Israel and the United States were strained by an announcement of new Israeli settlement plan in East Jerusalem made during a visit to the Jewish state by Vice President Joe Biden in March.

"They (the Israelis) want to divert the attention of the international community, especially the United States," said Hoteit.

Bases, Missiles, Wars

U.S. Consolidates Global Military Network

By Rick Rozoff
Source: Stop NATO
January 27, 2010
Courtesy Of Global Research

Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East. The advanced Patriot theater anti-ballistic missile batteries in place or soon to be in Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates describe an arc stretching from the Baltic Sea through Southeast Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Caucasus and beyond to East Asia. A semicircle that begins on Russia's northwest and ends on China's northeast. Over the past decade the United States has steadily (though to much of the world imperceptibly) extended its military reach to most all parts of the world. From subordinating almost all of Europe to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization through the latter's expansion into Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union, to arbitrarily setting up a regional command that takes in the African continent (and all but one of its 53 nations). From invading and establishing military bases in the Middle East and Central and South Asia to operating a satellite surveillance base in Australia and taking charge of seven military installations in South America. In the vacuum left in much of the world by the demise of the Cold War and the former bipolar world, the U.S. rushed in to insert its military in various parts of the world that had been off limits to it before. And this while Washington cannot even credibly pretend that it is threatened by any other nation on earth. It has employed a series of tactics to accomplish its objective of unchallenged international armed superiority, using an expanding NATO to build military partnerships not only throughout Europe but in the Caucasus, the Middle East, North and West Africa, Asia and Oceania as well as employing numerous bilateral and regional arrangements. The pattern that has emerged is that of the U.S. shifting larger concentrations of troops from post-World War II bases in Europe and Japan to smaller, more dispersed forward basing locations south and east of Europe and progressively closer to Russia, Iran and China. The ever-growing number of nations throughout the world being pulled into Washington's military network serve three main purposes. First, they provide air, troop and weapons transit and bases for wars like those against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, for naval operations that are in fact blockades by other names, and for regional surveillance. Second, they supply troops and military equipment for deployments to war and post-conflict zones whenever and wherever required. Last, allies and client states are incorporated into U.S. plans for an international missile shield that will put NATO nations and select allies under an impenetrable canopy of interceptors while other nations are susceptible to attack and deprived of the deterrent effect of being able to retaliate. The degree to which these three components are being integrated is advancing rapidly. The war in Afghanistan is the major mechanism for forging a global U.S. military nexus and one which in turn provides the Pentagon the opportunity to obtain and operate bases from Southeast Europe to Central Asia. One example that illustrates this global trend is Colombia. In early August the nation's vice president announced that the first contingent of Colombian troops were to be deployed to serve under NATO command in Afghanistan. Armed forces from South America will be assigned to the North Atlantic bloc to fight a war in Asia. The announcement of the Colombian deployment came shortly after another: That the Pentagon would acquire seven new military bases in Colombia. When the U.S. deploys Patriot missile batteries to that nation - on its borders with Venezuela and Ecuador - the triad will be complete. Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East. On January 28 the British government will host a conference in London on Afghanistan that, in the words of what is identified as the UK Government's Afghanistan website, will be co-hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghanistan's President Karzai and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and co-chaired by British Foreign Minister David Miliband, his outgoing Afghan counterpart Rangin Spanta, and UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide. The site announces that "The international community are [sic] coming together to fully align military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy." [1] The conference will also be attended by "foreign ministers from International Security Assistance Force partners, Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours and key regional player [sic]." Public relations requirements dictate that concerns about the well-being of the Afghan people, "a stable and secure Afghanistan" and "regional cooperation" be mentioned, but the meeting will in effect be a war council, one that will be attended by the foreign ministers of scores of NATO and NATO partner states. In the two days preceding the conference NATO's Military Committee will meet at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. "Together with the Chiefs of Defence of all 28 NATO member states, 35 Chiefs of Defence of Partner countries and Troop Contributing Nations will also be present." [2] That is, top military commanders from 63 nations - almost a third of the world's 192 countries - will gather at NATO Headquarters to discuss the next phase of the expanding war in South Asia and the bloc's new Strategic Concept. Among those who will attend the two-day Military Committee meeting are General Stanley McChrystal, in charge of all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan; Admiral James Stavridis, chief U.S. military commander in Europe and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander; Pakistani Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Israeli Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. Former American secretary of state Madeleine Albright has been invited to speak about the Strategic Concept on behalf of the twelve-member Group of Experts she heads, whose task it is to promote NATO's 21st century global doctrine. The Brussels meeting and London conference highlight the centrality that the war in Afghanistan has for the West and for its international military enforcement mechanism, NATO. During the past few months Washington has been assiduously recruiting troops from assorted NATO partnership program nations for the war in Afghanistan, including from Armenia, Bahrain, Bosnia, Colombia, Jordan, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Ukraine and other nations that had not previously provided contingents to serve under NATO in the South Asian war theater. Added to forces from all 28 NATO member states and from Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, Adriatic Charter and Contact Country programs, the Pentagon and NATO are assembling a coalition of over fifty nations for combat operations in Afghanistan. Almost as many NATO partner nations as full member states have committed troops for the Afghanistan-Pakistan war: Afghanistan itself, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Colombia, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Jordan, Macedonia, Mongolia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. The Afghan war zone is a colossal training ground for troops from around the world to gain wartime experience, to integrate armed forces from six continents under a unified command, and to test new weapons and weapons systems in real-life combat conditions. Not only candidates for NATO membership but all nations in the world the U.S. has diplomatic and economic leverage over are being pressured to support the war in Afghanistan. The American Forces Press Service featured a story last month about the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force's Regional Command East which revealed: "In addition to...French forces, Polish forces are in charge of battle space, and the Czech Republic, Turkey and New Zealand manage provincial reconstruction teams. In addition, servicemembers and civilians from Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates work with the command, and South Korea runs a hospital in the region." With the acknowledgment that Egyptian forces are assigned to NATO's Afghan war, it is now known that troops from all six populated continents are subordinated to NATO in one war theater. [3] How commitment to the Alliance's first ground war relates to the Pentagon securing bases and a military presence spreading out in all directions from Afghanistan and how worldwide interceptor missile plans are synchronized with both developments can be shown region by region. Central And South Asia After the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom attacks on and subjugation of Afghanistan began in October of 2001 Washington and its NATO allies acquired the indefinite use of air and other military bases in Afghanistan, including Soviet-built airfields. The West also moved into bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and with less fanfare in Pakistan and Turkmenistan. It has also gained transit rights from Kazakhstan and NATO conducted its first military exercise in that nation, Zhetysu 2009, last September. The U.S. has lobbied the Kazakh government to supply troops for NATO in Afghanistan (as it had earlier in Iraq) under the bloc's Partnership for Peace provisions. The Black Sea The year after Romania was brought into NATO as a full member in 2004 the U.S. signed an agreement to gain control over four bases in Romania, including the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base. The next year a similar pact was signed with Bulgaria for the use of three military installations, two of them air bases. The Pentagon's Joint Task Force-East (which operates from the above-named base) conducted nearly three-month-long joint military exercises last summer in Bulgaria and Romania in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan. On January 24 eight Romanian and Bulgaria soldiers were wounded in a rocket attack on a NATO base in Southern Afghanistan. Three days earlier Romania announced that it would deploy 600 more troops to that nation, bringing its numbers to over 1,600. Bulgaria has also pledged to increase its troop strength there and is considering consolidating all its forces in the country in Kandahar, one of the deadliest provinces in the war zone. Late last November Foreign Minister Rumyana Zheleva of Bulgaria was in Washington, D.C. to "hear the ideas of US President Barack Obama's administration on the strategy of the anti-missile defense in Europe." [4] During the same month Bogdan Aurescu, State Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Romanian Foreign Ministry, stated that "The new variant of the US anti-missile shield could cover Romania." [5] A local newspaper at the time commented on Washington's new "stronger, smarter, and swifter" missile shield plans that "A strong and modern surveillance system located in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could monitor three hot areas at once: the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian and relevant zones in the Middle East." [6] Also last November a Russian news source wrote that "Anonymous sources in the Russian intelligence community say that the United States plans to supply weapons, including a Patriot-3 air defense system and shoulder-launched Stinger missiles, worth a total of $100 million, to Georgia." [7] In October the U.S. led the two-week Immediate Response 2009 war games to prepare the first of an estimated 1,000 Georgian troops for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, prompting neighboring Abkhazia - which knew who the military training was also aimed against - to stage its own exercises at the same time. American Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles in Georgia would be deployed against Russia, as they will be 35 miles from its border in Poland. Former head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency Lt. Gen. Henry Obering stated two years ago that Georgia and even Ukraine were potential locations for American missile shield deployments. Middle East Last October and November the U.S. and Israel held their largest-ever joint military exercise, Operation Juniper Cobra 10, which established another precedent in addition to the number of troops and warships involved: The simultaneous testing of five missile defense systems. An American military official present at the war games was one of several sources acknowledging that the exercises were in preparation for the Barack Obama administration's more extensive, NATO-wide and broader, missile interception system. Juniper Cobra was the initiation of the U.S. X-Band radar station opened in 2008 in Israel's Negev Desert. Over 100 American service members are based there for the foreseeable future, the first U.S. troops formally deployed in that nation. In December the Jerusalem Post quoted an unnamed Israeli defense official as saying "The expansion of the war in Afghanistan opens a door for us." The same source wrote "the NATO-U.S. plan to deploy a cross-continent missile shield in Europe also represents an opportunity for the Jewish state to market its military platforms...." [8] "Meanwhile, recent months have seen several senior NATO officials travel to Israel for discussions that reportedly focused on, among other things, how Israel could help NATO troops fight in Afghanistan." [9] Last June Israeli President Shimon Peres led a 60-member delegation that included Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, on opposite ends of the Caspian Sea. A year ago "Kazakhstan's defense ministry said...it had asked Israel to help it modernize its military and produce weapons that comply with NATO standards." [10] The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the first Arab country to provide troops to NATO for Afghanistan. It has a partnership arrangement with NATO under provisions of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members. Early this month a local newspaper announced that "the UAE became the largest foreign purchaser of US defence equipment with sales of $7.9bn, ahead of Afghanistan ($5.4bn), Saudi Arabia ($3.3bn) and Taiwan ($3.2bn). "The spending included orders for munitions for the UAE's F-16 fighter jets as well as a new Patriot defensive missile system and a fleet of corvettes for the navy." [11] Nine days later the same newspaper reported on a visit by Lt. Gen. Michael Hostage, commander of the U.S. Air Force Central Command, to discuss "the possibility of setting up a shared early warning system and enhancing the region's ballistic-missile deterrence." Hostage was quoted as saying "I am attempting to organize a regional integrated air and missile defense capability with our GCC partners." [12] An Emirati general added, "The GCC needs a national and multinational ballistic missile defence (BMD) to counter long-range proliferating regional ballistic missile threats." [13] The missile shield is aimed against Iran. Last September Pentagon chief Robert Gates said, "The reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defense [as envisioned for Europe] that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies." [14] "In a September 17 briefing, Gates said...the United States has already formed a Gulf missile defense network that consisted of PAC-3 and the Aegis sea-based systems." The exact system soon to be deployed in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean and afterwards the Black Sea. In addition, the "UAE has ordered the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, designed to destroy nuclear missiles in the exoatmosphere. "Over the last two years, the Pentagon has been meeting GCC military chiefs to discuss regional and national missile defense programs....At the same time, the U.S. military has been operating PAC-3 in Kuwait and Qatar. The U.S. Army has also been helping Saudi Arabia upgrade its PAC-2 fleet." [15] Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News reported at the end of last year that "Turkey is set to make crucial defense decisions in 2010 as the U.S. offer to join a missile shield program and multibillion-dollar contracts are looming over the country's agenda. "If a joint NATO missile shield is developed, such a move may force Ankara to join the mechanism despite the possible Iranian reaction....U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has invited Ankara to join a Western missile shield system...." [16] An account of the broader strategy adds: "U.S. officials are also urging Turkey to choose the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) against Russian and Chinese rivals competing for a Turkish contract for the purchase of high-altitude and long-range antimissile defense systems....[A] new plan calls for the creation of a regional system in southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean and part of the Middle East. "In phase one of the new Obama plan, the U.S. will deploy SM-3 interceptor missiles and radar surveillance systems on sea-based Aegis weapons systems by 2011. In phase two and by 2015, a more capable version of the SM-3 interceptor and more advanced sensors will be used in both sea-and land-based configurations. In later phases three and four, intercepting and detecting capabilities further will be developed." [17] One of Russia's main news agencies reported on U.S. plans to incorporate Turkey into its new missile designs, with Turkey as the only NATO state bordering Iran serving as the bridge between a continent-wide system in Europe and its extension into the Middle East: "According to the Milliyet daily, U.S. President Barack Obama last week proposed placing a 'missile shield' on Turkish soil....Both Russia and Iran will perceive that [deployment] as a threat,' a Turkish military source was quoted as saying." [18] A broader description of the interceptor missile project in progress includes: "Obama's team has...sought to 'NATO-ise' the US plan by involving other allies more closely in its development and deployment. The idea is to create a NATO chain of command similar to that long used for allied air defences. That would involve a NATO 'backbone' for command-and-control jointly funded by the allies, into which the US sea-based defences and other national assets, such as short-range Patriot missile interceptors purchased by European nations including Germany, the Netherlands and Greece, could be 'plugged in' to the NATO system creating a multi-layered defence shield." [19] The advanced Patriot theater anti-ballistic missile batteries in place or soon to be in Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates describe an arc stretching from the Baltic Sea through Southeast Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Caucasus and beyond to East Asia. A semicircle that begins on Russia's northwest and ends on China's northeast. Baltic Sea Poland's Defense Ministry revealed on January 20 that the U.S. will deploy a Patriot Advanced Capability anti-ballistic missile battery and 100 troops to a Baltic Sea location 35 miles from Russian territory. The country's foreign minister - former investment adviser to Rupert Murdoch and resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. -Radek Sikorski, recently pledged to increase Polish troop numbers in Afghanistan from the current 1,955. "We will be at 2,600 by April and 400 additional troops on standby, which we will deploy if there is a need to strengthen security." [20] Fellow Baltic littoral states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania combined have almost 500 troops in Afghanistan, a number likely to rise. The Lithuanian Siauliai Air Base was ceded to NATO in 2004 after the three Baltic states became full members. The Alliance has flown regular air patrols in the region, with U.S. warplanes participating in six-month rotations, ever since. Within a few minutes flight from Russia. The three nations will be probable docking sites for U.S. Aegis-class warships and their Standard Missile-3 interceptors under new Pentagon-NATO missile shield deployments. Far East Asia South Korea pledged 350 troops for NATO's Afghan war last year and in late December Seoul announced that it would send a ranking officer for the first time "to attend a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conference to seek ways to strengthen cooperation with other nations in dispatching troops to Afghanistan and coordinate military operations there," [21] likely a reference to the January 26-27 Military Committee meeting. In the middle of January the U.S. conducted Beverly Bulldog 10-01 exercises in South Korea which "involved more than 7,200 U.S. airmen at Osan and Kunsan air bases and other points around the peninsula in an air war exercise" and "about 125 soldiers of the U.S. Army's Patriot missile unit in South Korea...." [22] On January 14 the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ended Japan's naval refuelling mission carried out in support of the U.S. war in Afghanistan since 2001. However, pressure will be exerted on Tokyo at the January 28 conference in London, particularly by Hillary Clinton, to reengage in some capacity. On last year's anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, the U.S. and Japan held joint war games, Yama Sakura (Mountain Cherry Blossom), on the island of Hokkaido in northernmost Japan, that part of the country nearest Russia on the Sea of Japan. North Korea was the probable alleged belligerent. Over 5,000 troops participated in drills that included "battling a regional threat that includes missile defenses, air defense and ground-forces operations...." "Japan's military has been actively developing its anti-missile defenses in cooperation with the United States. It currently has deployed Patriot PAC-3 missile defenses at several locations and also has two sea-based Aegis-equipped Kongo-class warships with anti-missile interceptors," [23] the latter having engaged in joint SM-3 missile interceptions with the U.S. off Hawaii. If support for the war in Afghanistan is linked with deployment of tactical missile shield installations in Israel and Poland, in the first case aimed at Iran and in the second at Russia, the case of Taiwan is even more overt. Almost immediately after announcements that the U.S. would provide it with over 200 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles and double the amount of frigates it had earlier supplied, with Taiwan planning to use the warships for Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System upgrades, the nation's China Times newspaper wrote that "Following a recent US-Taiwan military deal, the Obama administration has demanded that Taiwan provide non-military aid for troops in Afghanistan....The US wants Taiwan to provide medical or engineering assistance to US troops in Afghanistan that will be increased...." [24] Dispatching troops to Afghanistan would be too gratuitous an incitement against China (which shares a narrow border with the South Asian nation), but Taiwan will nevertheless be levied to support the war effort there. Wars: Stepping Stones For New Bases, Future Conflicts The 78-day U.S. and NATO air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, Operation Allied Force, allowed the Pentagon to construct the mammoth Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and within ten years to incorporate five Balkans nations into NATO. It also prepared the groundwork for U.S. Navy warships to dock at ports in Albania, Croatia and Montenegro. Two years later the attack on Afghanistan led to the deployment of U.S. and NATO troops, armor and warplanes to five nations in Central and South Asia. The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan has also contributed to the Pentagon's penetration of the world's second most populous nation, India, which is being pulled into the American military orbit and integrated into global NATO. The U.S. and Israel are supplanting Russia as India's main arms supplier and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently returned from India where his mission included "lifting bilateral military relations from a policy-alignment plane to a commercial platform that will translate into larger contracts for American companies." [25] With the quickly developing expansion of the Afghanistan-Pakistan war into an Afghanistan-Pakistan-Yemen-Somalia theater, NATO warships are in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and the U.S. has stationed Reaper drones, aircraft and troops in Seychelles. [On the same day as the London conference on Afghanistan a parallel meeting on Yemen will be held in the same city.] After the 2003 invasion of Iraq the Pentagon gained air and other bases in that nation as well as what it euphemistically calls forward operating sites and base camps in Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. In less than a decade the Pentagon and NATO have acquired strategic air bases and ones that can be upgraded to that status in Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania and Romania. Global NATO And Militarization Of The Planet The January 26 Chief of Defense session of NATO's Military Committee with top military leaders of 63 countries attending - while the bloc is waging and escalating the world's largest and lengthiest war thousands of miles away from the Atlantic Ocean - is indicative of the pass that the post-Cold War world has arrived at. Never in any context other than meetings of NATO's Military Committee do the military chiefs of so many nations (including at least five of the world's eight nuclear powers), practically a third of the world's, gather together. That the current meeting is dedicated to NATO operations on three continents and in particular to the world's only military bloc's new Strategic Concept for the 21st century - and for the planet - would have been deemed impossible twenty or even ten years ago. As would have been the U.S. and its NATO allies invading and occupying a Middle Eastern and a South Asian nation. And the elaboration of plans for an international interceptor missile system with land, air, sea and space components. In fact, though, all have occurred or are underway and all are integrated facets of a concerted drive for global military superiority. Notes 1) http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference 2) NATO, Allied Command Transformation, January 22, 2010 3) http://www.isaf.nato.int/en/article/news/u.s.-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-tours-bases-outposts.html 4) Standart News, November 25, 2009 5) ACT Media, November 16, 2009 6) The Diplomat, November, 2009 7) RosBusinessConsulting/Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 10, 2009 8) Jerusalem Post, December 3, 2009 9) Xinhua News Agency, December 3, 2009 10) Agence France-Presse, January 22, 2009 11) The National, January 2, 2010 12) The National, January 11, 2010 13) Gulf News, January 12, 2010 14) World Tribune, September 30, 2009 15) Ibid 16) Hurriyet Daily News, December 30, 2009 17) Ibid 18) Russian Information Agency Novosti, December 16, 2009 19) Europolitics, January 20, 2010 20) Sunday Telegraph, January 17, 2010 21) Xinhua News Agency, December 22, 2009 22) Stars and Stripes, January 16, 2010 23) Washington Times, December 3, 2009 24) China Times, December 27, 2009 25) The Telegraph (Calcutta), January 2, 2009 Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato Blog site: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwrozoff@yahoo.com or stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available.

Rick Rozoff is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Rick Rozoff