DELICATE BALANCE

On 8 July 2008, during a brief visit of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Czech Republic, an agreement was signed on deployment in that country of a US radar system. At the same time, the United States and Poland are working on an agreement on the deployment of 10 interceptor missiles. In short, the issue of deployment in Europe of the third launch base area of the US missile defence system is no longer a purely abstract one and has entered the phase of implementation in practice. A little later - and as if to justify Washington's plans - Iran held large-scale military exercises with launches of medium-range missiles. Although they cannot reach Europe, they are a considerable threat to US bases and its allies within a range of 2,000 kilometres from Iran.

As expected, Moscow's reaction was unequivocally negative. It was voiced by President Medvedev during the G8 summit in Japan, where he said that Russia was not going to become hysterical but would come up with a military-technical retaliation. Observers and analysts alike are speculating what measures Moscow might take. There is talk about building radar jammers and deploying Russian missiles in Kaliningrad Oblast, which would be able to reach Poland. There are heated debates as to whether the US moves pose a real threat to Russia.

In the opinion of the Russian military and politicians, American assessments of the missile threat from the DPRK or Iran are clearly overestimated. They view the plans to set up a third European launch base area for the global missile defence system as an attempt to devalue the strategic potential of Russia and China. The Russian military insistently draw attention to the fact that, together with the development of the missile defence system plans, the United States continues to work on strategic nuclear weapons, high-precision weapons, information management systems and space-based systems.

US proposals to grant access to Russian inspectors to the missile defence facilities which are to be deployed and not to load the antimissile missiles into silos (and store them at a base in Poland instead) or install some "safety fuses" which will make it impossible to launch the missiles at a moment's notice, were described by Moscow as inadequate, although Russia did not turn them down right away. The Russian leadership is clearly worried that the strategic balance which survived even the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union has begun to wobble visibly. Having withdrawn in June 2002 from the ABM Treaty, the United States decided not to settle for developing missile defences to protect their own territory and chose a course towards the building of a global missile defence system. As already noted above, Washington cites threats from the DPRK and Iran and the hypothetical possibility of seizure of missiles and nuclear materials by terrorists to vindicate these measures.

It has to be said that Western countries are not defenceless against this kind of threat. The United States, Germany, Britain and Italy have been working closely together on development of a modern missile defence system from 1997. Authoritative foreign military periodicals say that the US missile defence system today has the following components: four early warning radar systems in the Aleutian Islands, California, Britain and Greenland, warning radar in Alaska and forward radar in Japan. Targets can be intercepted by 16 GBI missiles at Fort-Greely (Alaska) and Vandenberg (California) bases and 18 SM-3 missiles on cruisers and destroyers of the AEGIS class. By 2013, yet another early warning radar system is to be put into operation (in the Czech Republic) and the number of GBI interceptors will be increased to 54. In addition, there are plans to deploy four THAAD missile systems aimed, against ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of their trajectory, and a large number of ship-based SM-3 missiles.

Nonetheless, military experts both in Russia and abroad say that, for now, the US missile defence system cannot neutralize Russian strategic missile forces. They point out, however, that the continuing reductions in the numbers of nuclear weapons, with the simultaneous growth of the accuracy and "purity" of the warheads they carry and decrease in their power, have brought strategic nuclear weapons to the usability threshold. According to the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which was signed in 2002, Russia and the United States are to reduce their strategic nuclear potential to 1,700-2,200 warheads on each side and keep in service 400-500 delivery vehicles (missiles and heavy bombers) by 2012.

With these cuts, if one side strikes first, the number of the other's surviving missiles will be barely adequate to inflict harm on the aggressor. And the global missile defence system helps to dramatically depress this threshold. When the system is fully deployed in the three echelons of ground-, sea- and aerospace-based weapons, the United States will have the possibility - for the first time since the middle of the last century - to deliver a nuclear strike against Russia without fearing retaliation. The several dozen missiles which will survive the first disarming strike will be intercepted by the missile defence system.

Russia maintains its own system for the air defence of Moscow at permanent readiness (it covers almost half of the European part of the country's territory) using the A-135 missile system. In 2007, Russia began to deploy the latest S-400 air defence systems in addition to the famous S-300 systems. The ability of Russian ballistic missiles to break through layered missile defences is also improving all the time. The newly manufactured missiles are equipped with manoeuvrable re-entry vehicles, improved anti-missile-defence systems, including fake targets, jammers, and so on.

However, the Russian leadership has no desire to become embroiled in yet another round of the arms race, even though the economy is on the rise and the country's financial situation is stable. The second Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has stressed this more than once. His successor Dmitriy Medvedev also urged the United States not to take steps that might undermine the strategic balance which has taken shape and which guarantees mutual security. Speaking at a recent meeting with the diplomatic corps, President Medvedev shared his views on international political problems and noted that Russia and the United States are responsible for the lasting stability in the world. "This common heritage of ours might disappear if one of the sides started dismantling individual components of the entire strategic balance," he stressed. "We say with firmness that the deployment of components of the US missile defence system in Eastern Europe will only aggravate the situation.  We will be forced to react to this in an appropriate manner," Medvedev said.

For now, however, to "punish" the Czech Republic for its assent to the deployment of US radar, the amount of oil supplied to the country via the Druzhba oil pipeline was halved without any explanation. Naturally, the Czechs have their strategic oil reserves and there is an alternative pipeline which runs through Germany. But it was a clear signal to Poland, which is even more dependent than the Czech Republic on Russian oil and gas, that Warsaw should not rush to allow Washington to deploy its interceptor missiles there. After all, cutting, say, the gas supply in mid-winter might create grave difficulties.

It is obvious that any political manipulation of oil and gas supply undermines trust in Russia as a reliable energy supplier. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Russian leadership reacted to its partners' displeasure with these events in a timely manner. At a meeting of the presidium of the Russian Government, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin instructed officials to restore to the Czech Republic the oil supply which had been cut a few days before. At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin explained that the Czech side's complaints were misplaced. "Oil is supplied under agreements made between the Russian companies and Czech customers via mediators registered in offshore zones. The vast majority of Russian companies have no long-term agreements with Czech customers." Sechin also voiced his concern about Ukraine's plans to use the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline in reverse mode in 2008. In his words, precisely these plans on the Ukrainian side were one of the reasons for the irregularities in oil supply to the Czech Republic. All of this does not sound very convincing against the admission by representatives of Tatneft of their fault in causing the inadequate supplies, because the company had sold a significant amount of the oil intended for the Czech Republic to Turkey, where a more advantageous price was offered.  Tatneft promised to resume full supply in a very short time but, as in the famous joke, the "an [unpleasant] odour remains."

As for Poland, it was its leadership which came up with the initiative to deploy the missile defence system in the country. But then Warsaw demanded almost $20 billion in assistance to modernise the military infrastructure from the United States. Washington thought the Poles' demands excessive and began to look for an alternative. Neighbouring Lithuania gave them to understand that it was willing to allow deployment on its territory. Perhaps this was just a form of diplomatic blackmail to make the Poles bridle up their financial appetites. When Russia and the United States had a difference of opinion about use of the Qabala station, information leaked to the media that alternative radar could be deployed in Turkey. The Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency chief Henry Obering also mentioned that the United States would be interested in the deployment of air defence radar in the South Caucasus too.

In short, the Republican administration demonstrates its resolve to deploy the third launch base area in Europe. But it is too early to think this matter settled. A great many things depend on who will be the next tenant of the White House. If John McCain wins, we should expect not merely a continuation of the present strategic military course, but even greater confrontation. As we know, McCain's position is even more hard-line than George Bush's, and he calls for Russia's exclusion from the G9.

In the opinion of some Russian and US analysts, should the Democratic administration come to power, it is very likely that the deployment plans for the missile defence system in Europe will be adjusted to allow for greater consideration of Moscow's wishes. The Americans then might agree to use the Czech radar together with the radar in Qabala and refrain from deploying interceptors in Poland until Iran tests its missiles of appropriate range. The Democrats, including those in Congress, have many times raised the issue of the expediency of deploying the radar and interceptor missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland. The Democratic majority in Congress mercilessly curtailed all requests for allocations for this purpose.

Many influential representatives of the Democratic Party argue that in order to effectively combat Iran's nuclear programme, it would make sense not to irritate Moscow with plans to deploy missile defence systems in Europe, thus causing grave concern in Russia, and start cooperating with Moscow more closely instead. As Congressional Committee Head Levin said, "Russians have no interest in Iran's having nuclear weapons." Especially as Russia openly issues threats, using its high-ranking military officers as mouthpieces, that it will aim its nuclear missiles at Europe. The British Sunday Times wrote, citing an unidentified source among the military top brass, that Moscow intends to deploy nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad and Belarus.

The 21 July issue of the Izvestia newspaper cited the words of an unidentified high-level Russian source that "while they are deploying their missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, our long-range strategic aviation aircraft are already landing in Cuba." Then there was a report in the media that the recently closed Lauderes surveillance base, also in Cuba, might resume operations. Other military officers and analysts question the expediency of this type of reaction from a military point of view and deem it politically unfavourable for Russia's long-term relations with Europe.

Obviously, to implement all the abovementioned so-called "retaliatory measures" before the United States starts to mount the radar and deploy the interceptor missiles can only yield an effect opposite to that intended. Thus, they should be viewed more like a signal that Moscow, which has now regained its strength after a lengthy period of disorganization and disintegration, intends to staunchly defend its views and its role in the system of international and European security, and it would be problematic to ignore this fact.

The US plans to spread its strategic defence systems into Europe will directly affect Azerbaijan.  And this is not simply a matter of the trajectories of hypothetical missile attacks on Europe by the countries and terrorist organizations in question running through our airspace. The Qabala radar is among the compromise options for the architecture of the global missile system which are being discussed by Washington and Moscow. Although the proposal did not get through in the form in which it was worded by the Russian leadership, and although Washington has not abandoned its plans for the Czech Republic and Poland, the dialogue continues. It is important for us to work on the consolidation of Azerbaijan's own security without causing displeasure to either the United States or Russia, including on issues of the defence of our country from possible missile attack and enlisting support for the process of regulation of the Karabakh conflict. But excessive activity or independence on these issues would be risky and caution and a wait and see approach are justified.  And this is what we see, too.