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Moscow: U.S., NATO Are Breaking Word on European Missile Defense
April 10, 2014
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/russ...efense/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Russia is accusing the United States and NATO of reneging on a promise that
antimissile assets deployed in Europe are aimed only at Iran.
At issue is the U.S. Defense Department's decision to redeploy the Aegis-equipped
USS Donald Cook to the Black Sea in order to bolster the confidence of NATO allies
and "Black Sea partners'" in the U.S. commitment to their security. The missile
destroyer is slated to arrive on Friday, department spokesman Army Col. Steve
Warren said in a Pentagon
press story.
The
USS Donald Cook was sent to to Rota, Spain earlier this year in accordance with a
U.S. plan to through the end of the decade deploy sea- and land-based missile
interceptors to Europe as a hedge against potential ballistic missile strikes from Iran.
Leaders in Moscow have long rejected U.S. verbal assurances that the interceptors
are not meant to counter Russia's strategic deterrent.
Some European countries have "already forgotten their previous syrupy assurances"
about the NATO ballistic missile shield and are now characterizing the framework
as a "military counterweight to Russia's growing 'expansionist' policy," Russian
Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov was quoted by
Voice of Russia as
saying on Wednesday.
"It all confirms our previous estimates that the missile shield in Europe ...
is aimed at undermining Russia's nuclear deterrent," Antonov said.
"It is noteworthy that [in] dispatching a warship in the Black Sea, the U.S. stated
[a] direct link between this military event of the country's Navy with [the] current
crisis in Ukraine for the first time," an unidentified Russian defense ministry source
told ITAR-Tass on Thursday.
Russia's forced annexation last month of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula has
greatly
unnerved Eastern European members of NATO. The U.S. military has sent additional
jets to Poland and has boosted the number of aircraft participating in rotational air
patrols over the Baltics. Ukraine is not a member of NATO but it is receiving some
non-lethal U.S. military assistance.
"The
Donald Cook's mission is to reassure NATO allies and Black Sea partners of
America's commitment to strengthen and improve interoperability," Warren said
in the Pentagon press report. "It demonstrates our commitment to our ... allies
to enhance security, readiness and capabilities."
