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Russians Visit U.S. Base to Explore NMD Alternative NewsMax.comAt the same time that Russia’s top military leadership attacked Vice President Dick Cheney’s call for an update to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that would allow the United States to build its national missile defense system (NMD), Russian missile experts headed for a top secret base in the United States today to work with U.S. experts on designing a system promoted by President Vladimir Putin as an alternative to NMD. "Russia opposes changes to the ABM treaty. Updating the treaty would end up destroying it," Gen. Valery Manilov, deputy armed forces chief, told Russian new agencies. According to Agence France-Presse, Manilov called the ABM treaty the cornerstone of arms control for 30 years. Cheney told Fox News Sunday that the ABM treaty was signed with the Soviet Union, which no longer exists, making the pact obsolete and no longer valid. On Friday Putin warned the United States that NMD deployment would "irreparably damage" global stability. He urged creation of an alternative to deploying the U.S. NMD shield, which would be the "creation of a non-strategic theater missile defense system with the participation of all interested states." Although the Bush administration is determined to push ahead with NMD, the current visit of Russian military experts indicated willingness to discuss the Putin plan. The Russian Defense Ministry says that during its Feb. 1-10 visit to the NORAD air base in Colorado Springs, Colo., the Russian group will take part in a joint training program on the use of non-strategic missile systems that could protect against attack by so-called rogue states. During their stay at the top secret North American Aerospace Defense Command, which operates as a first alert for any missile attacks on this continent, the Russians will also discuss the proliferation of rocket technology, the news agency said. The Bush administration insists the U.S. needs a ground-based national missile defense shield to fend off possible attacks from such hostile states as Iraq, Iran and North Korea, which are all developing sophisticated missile and nuclear weapons technology. Moscow, however, warns that building NMD will touch off a new arms race. In its place, Putin wants the U.S. to work with Russia in developing a non-strategic, or regional, missile defense system that would not undermine Moscow's own missile deterrent. Such a system would shoot down rockets in their launch phase, when missiles are slow and easier to detect, instead of the NMD system that would strike incoming warheads as they neared their targets.
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