NATO builds missile shield

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Russia still has no place in these plans

NATO builds missile shieldPan-European missile defense on theaters will cost NATO 200 million euros. In early May, as reported by some American media, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced at his monthly press conference. “This is not such a big amount for real protection against a real threat,” the Secretary General said and added that creating a new missile defense system for the theater of military operations of the North Atlantic Alliance could be the subject of cooperation with Russia, which could also take part in its development and implementation.

NATO anti-missile plans

According to the current head, a unified missile defense system of the North Atlantic alliance, which is planned to be created over the next 10 years, will help counter the real threats to the security of the bloc countries and their allies. He announced that all 28 missile defense systems of the bloc countries, including Germany, Denmark, as well as third-tier US missile defense equipment, which Washington, despite any political statements, still intends to deploy in Eastern Europe, can be combined into this system.

This year, NATO plans to create a so-called intermediate theater missile defense system, which should protect troops in a specific area from attacks. missiles short and medium range. However, NATO officials remain silent about what area this will be.

In the final form, the new integrated missile defense system will include various means of intercepting missiles at low and high altitudes, which NATO experts call the lower and upper echelons antimissile weapons. At the same time, NATO member countries provide the command of the airspace tracking system command and the missile interception equipment at their disposal, and the corresponding services of the alliance will ensure the development of a unified management, communications and reconnaissance system for the integrated missile defense system and will integrate all components of this system into single whole.

The main structure of NATO, which is responsible for determining the objectives of the program to create an anti-missile defense system in theaters, is the Conference of National Directors of Armaments (CNEL). The direct management of the program for the creation of a unified missile defense system of the alliance is carried out by the Steering Committee and the Program Bureau, which are hosted by the NATO Advice, Command and Control Agency (ACCU).

Not so long ago, at the integrated test site located at the AKKU in The Hague, the Program Office, in conjunction with the SAIK group (System Design and Integration), which is NATO’s main contractor in creating a single missile defense system, developed specifications for interfacing missile defense systems and control systems. NATO and member countries. During the tests, US missile defense systems and equipment from the United States, the Netherlands and France were used. The tests confirmed the correctness of the chosen approaches and the need to procure systems and equipment for organizing the control and communication of the NATO missile defense units and the block command.

After the NATO Summit in Prague in 2002, in accordance with the decision of the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance, the development of a military-economic justification for missile defense was started. The main objective of this study was to analyze the options for protecting the territory of the Alliance, its Armed Forces and the population from missile attacks. These developments were carried out by experts from a multinational European-American expert group in cooperation with the NATO Agency for Consultation, Command and Control. Based on the results of the work, a conclusion was drawn on the technical feasibility of creating a unified NATO missile defense system.

In 2008, at the meeting of NATO representatives in Bucharest, the Alliance leadership considered the technical issues of creating a unified missile defense system for the bloc as well as the political and military implications of the proposed building of a third echelon of the US missile defense system in Europe. NATO leaders agreed that the planned deployment of US missile defense systems in Europe would help protect many NATO countries, and decided that the system should be an integral part of any future missile defense architecture of the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

CONCEPTS AND PREPARATIONS

NATO's missile defense activities are based on two fundamental documents: “NATO Strategic Concept” from 1999 and General Policy Guidelines, which were approved by the Alliance leaders at a meeting in Riga in November 2006.

The NATO Strategic Concept points to the need to develop a missile defense system to combat nuclear, biological and chemical threats. In particular, it states that “there should be continued improvement in the construction of the defense of the Alliance in terms of the risks and potential threats of the spread of weapons mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery, including through the improvement of the missile defense system. The goal of these activities is to ensure a reduction in the level of operational vulnerability of NATO forces, while maintaining their flexibility and effectiveness.

The General Policy Guidelines set priorities for all the development of the Alliance's forces and facilities, for the development of planning documents, and for conducting intelligence activities over 10 – 15 years. This document also provides an overview of the strategic situation during this period, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is viewed as one of the main threats to the NATO bloc.

COOPERATION OF RUSSIA AND NATO IN THE FIELD OF PRO

Back in April of this year, Anders Rasmussen said that Russia should play one of the main roles in the project to create a unified missile defense system.

Negotiations between Moscow and Washington on the possibility of creating a unified missile defense system with the participation of Russia were launched in 2000. In 2003, under the auspices of the Russia-NATO Council, research began on studying the interoperability of the actions of military contingents that ensure the functioning of the NATO theater missile defense systems of NATO countries and Russia. In addition, a number of joint command-staff and computer exercises of Russia and NATO were conducted. They were conducted in order to obtain the necessary data to ensure the interoperability of missile defense systems and facilities in the theater of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and NATO countries and to develop mechanisms and procedures for the joint operation of military units of former adversaries in this field.

After the administration of George W. Bush came to power, talks about missile defense cooperation were interrupted due to the fact that the White House announced the interruption of the Soviet-American ABM Treaty signed in 1972.

The decision of the new owner of the White House, elected in 2008 year, President Barack Obama about refusing to deploy in the European region of the third positional area of ​​the national missile defense system of the United States contributed to a significant reduction in tensions between Moscow and Washington. Negotiations on cooperation in this area were resumed after a new Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Rasmussen, came out in support of the project to create a joint missile defense system in Russia, the US and NATO countries in 2009.

At the end of April this year, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that he was ready to support all the proposals of the bloc to create a global missile defense system (PRO). However, he noted that all proposals should be strictly specific.

As the president stated, “if this is a serious proposal,” then Russia can respond positively to all aspects of cooperation in the field of missile defense. “We have long advocated that the global defense system, the missile defense system protect not only one country or group of countries, but that it was in the interests of all responsible members of the world community,” Medvedev said in one of his interviews.

However, according to Russian military experts, the creation of a unified anti-missile defense system in Russia and NATO is an extremely difficult and expensive task. They believe that Russia will not gain anything from this. It has its own missile defense systems and facilities, which continue to protect the country’s territory in all sectors of the review and areas of possible missile attack. One of the experts in the field of missile defense explained to the NVO observer that “NATO has not yet made any specific proposals to Russia on this matter. There are only the most general conversations that are purely political. They are trying to convince Russia that the NATO missile defense systems are not directed against it, but imply the fight against such adversaries as Iran, North Korea and some other hypothetical potential owners of nuclear missiles that could hit Europe. The NATO Secretary General at his last press conference to a question from one of the journalists said that the alliance had not yet specifically and in detail discussed the issue of Russia's participation in the theater missile defense and is only going to do this in the coming months within the Russia-NATO Council.

But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in his interview with the Danish radio broadcasting company clearly stated that all NATO proposals in the field of missile defense should be serious and specific. At the same time, the Russian president absolutely reasonably warned Brussels and the White House that the exclusion of our country from the field of development of missile defense, as he put it, “into the backyard” has no prospects.

In the near future, as Rasmussen announced at his last press conference, the condemnation of the new project “Strategic concept of NATO”, the text of which, as stated by officials in Brussels, will be available to the world community, will begin. And then it will be clear what place the leaders of the bloc took in their plans for Russia.