*Perilous Times

Russian military calls US missile defense a threat*

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 9, 2010; 2:29 PM

MOSCOW -- U.S. missile defense plans are a threat to Russian national
security and have slowed down progress on a new arms control treaty with
Washington, Russia's top military officer said Tuesday.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov said that a revised U.S. plan to place missiles in
Europe undermines Russia's national defense, rejecting Obama
administration promises that the plan is not directed at his country.

"We view it very negatively, because it could weaken our missile
forces," Makarov, the chief of the Russian military's General Staff,
said in televised remarks.

Makarov's comments are the strongest yet on the revamped U.S. missile
effort and signal potential new obstacles to an agreement on a new
nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty that expired Dec. 5.

The U.S. has insisted that the missile defense plans should be separate
from talks to forge a new agreement on cutting the two nations' nuclear
arsenals. Moscow and Washington hoped that they would sign a new treaty
by the end of December, but talks have dragged on.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Tuesday that
U.S. missile defense moves in Europe are a reaction to Iran's missile
threat and "are in no way directed at Russia." He said U.S. officials
have been open about missile defense plans and have talked with Russian
officials generally about the issue.

President Barack Obama's decision to scrap Bush administration plans for
missile defense sites designed to shoot down long-range missiles from
rogue states such as Iran drew praise from the Kremlin, which had
fiercely opposed the earlier plan as a threat.

Experts have said the new plan is less threatening to Russia because it
would not initially involve interceptors capable of shooting down
Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In December, Moscow urged Washington to share detailed data about the
reconfigured sea- and land-based systems to replace the old plans.

Russian officials at first reacted calmly to U.S. plans to deploy
Patriot missile systems in Poland, but have grown increasingly critical
in recent weeks.

Romania last week approved a proposal to place anti-ballistic missile
interceptors in the country as part of the revamped American missile shield.

Asked Tuesday about the plans in Romania and Poland, Makarov called the
U.S. missile defense plans a threat.

"The development of missile defense is aimed against the Russian
Federation," he said.

Romania's Foreign Ministry maintained in a document that the proposed
system is "strictly defensive ... it just defends against any attack."

No radar would be placed in the country for the missile-defense system
and no interceptors would be put on ships in the Black Sea, the ministry
said. The ministry also said that Russia could participate in the system
if it chose to do so.

The ministry said the shield would include four phases. First, radar and
Standard Missile-3 ballistic missiles would be placed on ships in
southeastern Europe, along with a radar base, by 2011.

The second phase, by 2015, would include placing ground interceptors and
a new radar base in southeastern Europe. The third phase would cover the
whole of Europe by placing ground interceptors in northern Europe and
developing new SM-3s to be placed on the ground and on ships, by 2018.

In the fourth phase, by 2020, the system would include protection
against intercontinental ballistic missiles, the ministry said.

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Associated Press Writer Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest, Romania,
contributed to this report.