Threats from Russia about a missile strike on US soil, should we be worried?

Threats from Russia about a missile strike on US soil, should we be worried?

This New Russian missiles will easily be able to penetrate any prospective missile shield and will remain unrivalled for the next 15-20 years. This is a Topol-M ballistic missile.

              Russia’s lead military officer has threatened the US to send a pre-emptive missile. NATO missile defense facilities will go up if Washington goes along with its plan to build a missile shield. President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia will retaliate if they don’t reach an agreement with the United States and NATO on the missile defense system.

Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov went even further with the topic on Thursday. “A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens,” he said at an international conference. Russian Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov warned on Thursday at a conversation between Moscow and Washington on topic are “close to a dead end.”

Moscow didn’t believe Washington’s claim that the missile plan is to solely to deal with any Iranian missile threat and has said that it will eventually become powerful enough to undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Moscow has proposed to run the missile shield jointly with NATO, but the alliance has rejected the proposal.

Markov’s statement on Thursday doesn’t seem to be taken as a threat, but puts pressure on Washington to agree to Russia’s demands. The two-day conference in Moscow the Russian-US meeting about military issues before a NATO summit in Chicago later this month. There was a high level of distrust remaining between the two sides.

U.S. State Department special envoy Ellen Tauscher responded that neither side can afford another arms race.

The Obama administration tried to ease tensions with Russia in 2009 by saying it would revamp an earlier Bush-era plan to emphasize shorter-range interceptors. Russia welcomed that move, but has more recently suggested the new interceptor could threaten its missiles as the U.S.

The U.S.-NATO missile defense plans use Aegis radars and interceptors on ships and a more powerful radar based in Turkey in the first phase, followed by radar and interceptor facilities in Romania and Poland.

Russia would not plan any retaliation unless the United States goes through with its plans and takes the third and final step and deploys defense elements in Poland, Antonov said Wednesday. That is estimated to happen no earlier than in 2018.

Russia has just commissioned a radar in Kaliningrad, its western outpost near the Polish border, capable of monitoring missile launches from Europe and the North Atlantic.

On Thursday at the start of a conference attended by representatives from about 50 countries. Russia’s Security Council secretary reiterated Moscow’s offer to run the missile shield together with NATO.

 Nikolai Patrushev said such a jointly run European missile defense system "could strengthen the security of every single country of the continent" and "would be adequate for possible threats and will not deter strategic security."        

NATO's deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow, told the conference that the U.S.-led missile shield is "not and will not be directed against Russia" and that Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles are "too fast and too sophisticated" for the planned system to intercept.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator John McCain, on a visit to Lithuania, lashed out at Russia's plans in Kaliningrad.

Where does this leave us now?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/russia-missile-defense-pre-emptive-strike_n_1473593.html?ref=world

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-Eva Driscoll Per.3