 Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced what he called a vast programme to upgrade the country's missile defence system. Visiting a new radar early-warning station near St Petersburg, Mr Putin said it was the first step in a major construction project lasting till 2015.
Russia claims to have has grave concerns about plans to deploy parts of a new US missile defence system in Eastern Europe.
| Putin's managed to sell that one to the western press pretty well. Of course, the press wanted to buy it. |
Mr Putin has warned that Russia will take measures to counter the plan.
| On account of, it's their geopolitical RIGHT to threaten Europe with missiles. More to the point, it cuts into their arms sales to Iran etc. and is humiliating to them. Or something. |
The US insists its programme is aimed to deal with threats from countries such as Iran and North Korea, and says Russia should have nothing to fear.
| Simple math: twelve interceptors can't stop several hundred Russkie missiles. But twelve interceptors prob'ly can stop a few Iranian missiles. |
Russia has offered a sneaky compromise solution, which would allow the US to share use of a radar installation in Azerbaijan.
| Hey, their first PCs were a total reverse engineer of the Apple II, right down to the unoperational bits in the boot ROM. Think how cool it would be ro reverse engineer our BMD! |
Mr Putin described the new early-warning station - at Lekhtusi, 50km north of St Petersburg - as "the first step in the implementation of a major early-warning programme up to the year 2015". The station was built in just 18 months and opened in December last year. It replaces the Soviet Union's Skrunda radar station in Latvia, which was dismantled in 1998. A similar installation is under construction at Armavir in southern Russia.
| The geopolitical sands are truly shifting globally. We'll see how it all settles out. A lot depends on whether the American public wakes up to what is at stake. |
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