New US missile defense plan upsets Russia
MAY 24, 2006
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.020118
The Independent : The US is proposing to install an $1.6 billion anti-missile defence system in either Poland or the Czech Republic, to counter any future attack from a nuclear-armed Iran. The system would have the same capabilities as the anti-missile shield under construction in Alaska and California. The move would have “a negative impact on the whole Euro-Atlantic security system”, Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, told a Belarus newspaper. The mooted site for the system was “dubious, to put it mildly”, he said.There has been no tests of a missile defense system since 2002, and most of the tests have failed. The new program is seen as sending a message to Iran over its uranium-enrichment programme. The Pentagon will spend over $10 billion in the current budget cycle on missile defense.
© 2006 American Institute of Physics
