As long as the U.S. administration conducts talks on the use of Russian radar stations in Azerbaijan and Armavir (the Krasnodar region of Russia), the Pentagon harbors other plans. The USA intends to deploy more elements of its missile defense system to the south of Russia in addition to the missile base in Poland and the radar station in the Czech Republic. The chairman of the US Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant-General Henry Obering said in the beginning of spring that the United States would like to deploy a radar station in the Caucasian region.
Poland's National Security Bureau (BBN) showed pictures of the draft missile defense system in Europe to Russian journalists at the end of October. A mobile radar station in the Caspian region was marked on one of the pictures. Spokespeople for the BBN said that the radar was marked on the map by mistake. However, the station can be clearly seen on the map posted on the website of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. It is a centimetric radar that can be mounted on a mobile platform based on both water and ground surface. The radar allowed for the detection of smaller objects and for a more precise targeting of intercepting missiles.
Spokespeople for the US Missile Defense Agency, the Pentagon and the State Department declined to comment the situation.
A source from the Russian Defense Ministry said in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper that a radar station deployed near Russia's southern borders would let the USA control the launches of Iran's non-existent long-range missiles as well as Russia's tests of new defense technologies that are presumably conducted in the south of the country and in Kazakhstan.
"If the United States had had serious intentions regarding the deployment of an additional radar station in the Caspian region, Russian military officials would have informed the government on that long ago," the chairman of the Committee for Defense and Security of Russia's Federation Council, Viktor Ozerov said.
The USA plans to detect the launches of Iranian missiles with the help of satellites. "The radar is not really needed for the early detection of missile launches. However, if the USA intends to deploy more radars around Russia, the station in the Caucasian region will come in handy. The USA already works on a missile defense system in the Far East. They would need to deploy one more radar somewhere in Mongolia to cover Russia's territory completely," the Director of the Center for Disarmament Studies, Anatoly Dyakov said.
From the point of view of the classic nuclear strategy, the defense infrastructure, the building of which we can witness now, can be used against Russia in the future.
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PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin - News, Politics, Art and Science. Nr. 127, January 2008