Moscow Refutes Pentagon Story on Russian and Chinese Missile Defense as a Threat

Aug. 1, 2020 (EIRNS)—The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement yesterday taking note of an article posted on the Pentagon website on July 28 which characterized Russian and Chinese missile defense efforts as a “strategic threat” to the U.S. in the context of “great power competition,” titled, “Commentary by the Information and Press Department on an Article about Missile Defense.” Calling it part of a “targeted disinformation campaign” against Russia and China, the ministry said that “this is about the United States trying to justify its own large-scale and expensive programs for creating and modernizing weapons and plans to build up its military presence around the world.”

The Foreign Ministry statement notes that it was the U.S. that pulled out the 1972 ABM Treaty, but the Pentagon article doesn’t even mention that. “Notably, the U.S. military is deploying strategic missile defense infrastructure not only within the national boundaries of the United States, but around the world, which makes it a global system in nature,” the Russian statement continues.

“Washington is also thinking about developing the space segment of its missile defense system, in fact, planning to deploy attack weapons in outer space. In addition, in the context of missile defense at the doctrine level, the Pentagon has left open the possibility of delivering preventive ‘disarming’ strikes against other countries in order to destroy missiles before they are launched. Moreover, the United States claims these are defensive actions.

“It is important to understand that the fast-expanding architecture of the U.S. missile defense system is changing the strategic balance of forces in the sphere of offensive weapons, creates major additional global instability risks and contributes to forming dangerous conditions for stepping up a nuclear and space arms race,”

the minister further writes.

The statement asserts that Russia has numerous times since the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty made offers of cooperation in the anti-missile sphere but that these offers have always been rejected. “More than ever before, the world doesn’t need rivalry, which the current U.S. administration is betting on, but cooperation, especially in security,” it concludes. “We are ready to discuss missile defense issues with the United States as part of a bilateral strategic dialogue.”