Top Russian generals hinted on Friday at a possible compromise on US plans for a missile defence shield, at the same time warning that the shield as currently envisaged could lead to a new arms race, according to dpa. Army General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the Russian general staff, suggested that Russia could contribute to a joint missile shield, developed in conjunction with the US and NATO. "We have the weapons and they can secure Russia," he said. "These weapons have a certain range of effect, and if these weapons are deployed to our borders, they can cover neighbouring nations," Makarov said. "Russia is ready to discuss this question in as much depth as NATO is willing," he added. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has offered support for this idea. "In 2020 Europe should see a new system of anti-missile defence. We should agree now, what kind of defence it should be," Medvedev said in comments reported by the Interfax news agency. Medvedev warned of a "serious reversion to the Cold War" if Washington went through with its current plans to erect a missile defence system in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. A new arms race would result, he said, something that neither side wanted. Makarov and Lieutenant General Andrei Tretiak, chief of operations for the General Staff, said that the US missile shield could only be seen as aimed at Russia. Tretiak said a recently completed Russian Army analysis found that the shield, when fully operational, would "directly threaten the Russian nuclear potential." "Our analysis has shown that the initial phases of the US system do not pose a threat to Russian strategic nuclear weapons," Tretiak said. "This will change by the third and fourth phases, that is by 2015." No Middle Eastern state is likely to obtain the capacity to fire a missile at the European continent by 2015 or even later, meaning that the US anti-missile system could be directed only at Russia, Tretiak said. Russian early warning radars in Belarus, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are well-placed to detect a missile fired from the Middle East and could be integrated into a European defence network immediately, Interfax reported, citing other Russian army officials. The US and NATO have been working on plans to assemble missile defences in Central and Eastern Europe to counter Iran's growing ballistic missile capability. In 2009, US President Barack Obama dropped controversial plans by his predecessor, George W Bush, to build a long-range missile defence system in favour of a shorter-range system. The US plan calls for more than 300 interceptor missiles to be deployed by 2015, which would give Washington the capacity to destroy large numbers of Russian land- and submarine-launched missiles, Tretiak said. The US and the Soviet Union signed an agreement in 1972 drastically limiting the number of anti-missile systems each side can deploy. The US withdrew from the treaty in 2002.
