New US missile proposals cause old adversaries to stir

Missile defense. Space weapons. A new nuclear warhead design.

Issues from the 1980s? Yes – and issues for today. This spring has been a time of traveling back to the future for US strategic weapons policy as old controversies return in new geopolitical contexts.

The US government says it is just trying to adapt to a new world of threats. For instance, a proposed missile defense site in Eastern Europe is meant to counter Iranian long-range missiles, according to the White House.

But America's old cold war adversaries don't see things quite the same way. Russia and China appear to be worried that the burgeoning missile-defense system and possible new US weapons – such as nonnuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and a new nuclear Reliable Replacement Warhead – really are aimed at them.

The Russians and Chinese see these various steps "as a potential threat to their own nuclear deterrent capabilities," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "So the US has to look carefully at the costs and benefits of these various military systems."

Missile defense has been an item of contention between superpowers since the days of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Soviet leaders took SDI seriously, despite the fact that its early technology often failed development tests – seeing the system as something which US technological prowess might eventually turn into a capable shield.

Today's missile defense is intended to protect against only a few incoming weapons, rather than provide a shield against massive attack. The US has erected sites in Alaska and central California, which for the most part are still being tested. The ground-based interceptors it commands are meant to protect against North Korean long-range missile development, according to the US.

The US also wants to erect a defense site in Eastern Europe, with 10 interceptors based in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic. But Russian leaders remain adamantly opposed to this defense site, for much the same reason cited by their Soviet predecessors.

The Russians do not worry as much about possible Iranian missile threats as do American officials. They do worry that defenses, even imperfect ones, might blunt the power of their own vast nuclear arsenal.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, after a visit to Moscow on April 23, said that he felt as if he had made some "headway" on this subject. He offered to work with the Russians on defense concepts and technologies, and to perhaps locate Russian and US defense radars together.

"We face new threats that require new strategies for deterrence and defense," said Mr. Gates.

But public comments by Russian officials suggested continued opposition.

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