| The US is speeding up the creation of a global missile defense system The US military notified the country's public that the first interceptor missiles in the missile defense (ABM) system under construction will be put on combat duty ahead of schedule. As you know, ten interceptor missiles are scheduled to be deployed at Vandenberg bases in California and Fort Greely in Alaska this fall. However, the Pentagon proceeds from the fact that “some protection” from missiles can be provided by two or three complexes deployed in the summer. It is quite clear that the Ministry of Defense in this case is acting in line with the election campaign of President Bush, who can declare that he fulfilled his main promise in the 2000 campaign ahead of schedule.
Bush's opponents say the rush is unjustified and that the system is built on untested technology. Nevertheless, $9.1 billion has been allocated for work on creating a national (or global) US missile defense system this year, and the budget is promised to be increased to 10 billion next year. The political aspirations of the presidential administration are in such contradiction with the true state of affairs that even Director of the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation Office, Thomas Christie, issued a warning: it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the missile defense system, since there is clearly insufficient data on missile defense tests.
Russian experts also emphasize that, contrary to American tradition, few launches were carried out, flight tests were too simple, and, as a rule, the same trajectories were used. Since 1999, eight flight tests have been carried out, five of them ended in the defeat of a dummy warhead of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) of a mock enemy, three in failure. There is also a scandalous story, which has not been fully clarified, involving the use of a radio beacon on an ICBM, which an interceptor missile reached without any problems. Two more test launches are planned this year.
The growing scandal will apparently somewhat cool down the potential partners of the United States in the construction of a joint missile defense system, which the Chinese have already called “the son of Star Wars.” So far, US allies are very active. In particular, Australia plans to purchase three American destroyers with SM-3 interceptor missiles for this purpose. Canada and the United States exchanged official letters on cooperation in the field of missile defense. Japan also expressed its intentions in this regard. To keep its allies, the United States promises to soon create a next-generation missile defense model. Indeed, at the beginning of 2004, the Lockheed Martin aerospace corporation received a contract from the US administration to develop fundamentally new interceptor missiles. The cost of the contract, designed for ten years, is $768 million. As a result of its implementation, anti-missile missiles with multiple warheads, having several miniature striking elements, will enter service. True, according to experts, including American ones, the new product may have the same disadvantages as its predecessor produced by the Reithion company.
Russian military officers and diplomats have not yet commented on the “American acceleration”, habitually repeating that the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in June 2002 violates the fundamentals of maintaining strategic security, and plans to create a global missile defense system are unjustified. The Russian missile defense system of the capital region, which has a hundred interceptor missiles of two types located in four points in Moscow and the Moscow region, is capable of intercepting only isolated accidental or unauthorized launches. So we have nothing to oppose to the Americans yet.
As a countermeasure, Russia proposes that Europe create a unified non-strategic missile defense system - theater missile defense. No practical steps in this direction have been recorded yet. Nikolay POROSKOV |
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