U.S. Says Russians May Want a Deal on Missile Defense

‘But they acknowledged that Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov and

the chief Russian arms control negotiator, Georgi Memedev, had

revealed no significant shift in their opposition to the missile

defense plan. “The Russians have shown a willingness to intensify

the process,” a senior administration official said. “But we’re not

seeing a huge shift.”‘

Sure, we’re not seeing a shift. That’s because the US wants to abrogate the ABM treaty to develop the Star Wars missile defense system. We say we’re trying to defend ourselves against rogue states’ or terrorists’ ballistic missile attacks. But because Russia can’t afford to build all the extra warheads that would be necessary to overcome our new defensive umbrella, the deterrence parity between our two nuclear arsenals would be lost. So, quite naturally, they don’t want to let us bow out of the ABM Treaty. I still say that the solution would be to develop anti-missile defenses jointly with the Russians.