NATO: European missile shield 'provisionally operational'
If there is any issue that threatens to derail relations with Russia, it's the issue of missile defense.
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At cross-purposes
The dispute looks almost impossible to resolve, in part because both sides are talking at cross-purposes, and the threats each is concerned about remain theoretical future possibilities rather than immediate realities that might be negotiated over.
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Correspondent
Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.
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NATO claims it needs a shield to defend against hypothetical rogue missile strikes from Iran or North Korea – a threat that does not presently exist – while Moscow complains that the shield currently being installed in Europe might undercut Russia's strategic edge in its later stages, almost a decade hence.
"The paradox of this debate over missile defense is that it's completely disconnected from real issues on both sides," says Mr. Lukyanov. "The actual military issues they're both talking about are countering virtual threats, not real ones. But in political terms it's about the basis of trust, and it's causing trouble right now."
On the Russian side, the missile defense controversy helps gin up domestic support for newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin's sweeping rearmament plans, which may be popular in Russia's conservative hinterland where nostalgia for USSR-era superpower status remains strong, but are not necessarily the wisest economic priority for Russia at this time.
"At this juncture of history, for the first time, Russia faces no significant threat whatsoever, from any direction. So there needs to be a threat of some sort to talk about," says Sergei Karaganov, head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policies, a leading Moscow think tank.
But the fractious dialogue over missile defense has made a bad situation worse and, he adds, Western leaders are not addressing the legitimate concerns of Russian military leaders in a forthright manner.
"It's all explained as if it's a counter to this nonexistent Iranian threat," which may be addressed by other means in coming days and months, Mr. Karaganov says. "These are either lies, or they are cover for other goals. We are simply not talking openly or realistically about the missile defense issue, and this drags down the level of trust."
Pushing Russia toward China?
It could also be pushing Russia into what some observers are describing as a possible foreign-policy pivot toward China and the East under its newly returned Kremlin leader, Mr. Putin. Speculation on this theme has been spiking since Putin announced that he would skip last Friday's Group of Eight summit at Camp David and will instead make his first foreign visits to Belarus and China in the next couple of weeks.
Though it has been little remarked in coverage of the issue, Moscow and Beijing see eye to eye on missile defense, says Karaganov.
"We've been having constant conversations with our Chinese colleagues about this, and they have the same point of view as us," he says. "They haven't spoken up much about it, but they may start to do so."
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