Re: [CTRL] Canada and Missile Defense
-Caveat Lector-
Alamaine Ratliff wrote:
-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.globeandmail.com/gam/International/19991106/UABMMM.html
e-mailable
{{Begin}}
Canada not essential to missile defence, U.S. hints
Detect-and-destroy system capable of protecting North America likely to go
ahead even if Ottawa, Moscow, Beijing disapprove
PAUL KORING and JEFF SALLOT
The Globe and Mail
Saturday, November 6, 1999
Washington and Ottawa -- PAUL KORING in Washington
JEFF SALLOT in Ottawa
The United States is capable of deploying an antimissile system that would
protect nearly all of North America even if Ottawa were to refuse to allow an
early-warning radar site in the Canadian Arctic, according to a senior U.S.
official.
"I'm not sure that Canadian co-operation is absolutely essential," Walter
Slocombe, U.S. defence undersecretary for policy, said yesterday. "We would
like it," he added, saying that talks are under way between the two
governments.
Current U.S. plans call for upgrading early-warning radar installations,
including several in Canada, which, along with space-based satellite detection
systems, would be integrated to identify, track and target incoming ballistic
missiles.
Interceptors would then be launched from a new site to be built in Alaska to
down the incoming missiles before they could reach their targets.
Such a system, designed to protect the entire United States, including Hawaii
and Alaska, would also put most of Canada, and all of its major cities, under a
defensive umbrella.
Ottawa, which fears that the plans could unravel the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, has never formally opposed Washington's interest in the matter.
It has, though, expressed concern that such a system could upset the
international arms-control regimes.
Canadian policy depends on the outcome of U.S.-Russian talks on modifying the
ABM treaty, Foreign Affairs spokesman Michael O'Shaughnessy said yesterday.
Canada abstained on a contentious Russian-sponsored resolution on nuclear arms
control at the United Nations yesterday, despite recent impassioned warnings by
Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy that nuclear annihilation is the
greatest threat facing humanity.
The resolution called for the preservation and strengthening of the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty, a 27-year-old agreement that Mr. Axworthy has praised
as a "cornerstone of strategic stability in the world."
By abstaining, Canada avoids widening the public split between Ottawa and
Washington on nuclear issues that first appeared a year ago.
The United States opposed the resolution yesterday because it wants to
renegotiate the ABM treaty as a prelude to deploying its national missile-
defence system.
Both Russia and China have warned that deploying such a system could reignite a
Cold War-style nuclear arms race.
The ABM treaty was designed to preserve the Cold War's strategic equilibrium of
mutually assured destruction by outlawing the development of antimissile
systems that, by thwarting massive nuclear attacks, could have upset that
balance.
Although the ABM treaty allowed both sides to deploy a defence system over a
small area (the U.S. set one up near missile sites in North Dakota and the
Soviets put theirs around Moscow), the pact was based on the premise that both
sides remained vulnerable to a massive barrage of nuclear-tipped
intercontinental missiles.
Washington claims its current national missile-defence policy is consistent
with the ABM treaty because it is designed only to detect and destroy a handful
of incoming missiles, the kind of attack that could be launched by a "rogue
state." It has said that such a system would be incapable of preventing the
type of attack that is within Russia's capability.
"The purpose of the program is to defend against limited attack," Mr. Slocombe
said yesterday in a speech to the Centres for Strategic and International
Studies. "Over the next 15 years [the United States] will most likely face ICBM
[intercontinental ballistic missile] threats from North Korea, Iran and
possibly Iraq," he said.
While Washington insists that it remains committed to the ABM treaty, it wants
Moscow to agree to reopen the pact and modify it to allow for antimissile
missile systems designed to protect against small-scale nuclear, biological or
chemical attacks.
So far, Moscow has refused. U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen has confirmed
that Washington will pull out of the ABM treaty if it fails to get Russian co-
operation in modifying it.
A decision is required next year and the new system could be deployed by 2005.
{{End}}
AER
~~~
I've been busy the past four months with a strike and have been unable to keep
abreast of all the international news I usually read. Please excuse me for
anything repetitious.
The subject of the above article grabbed my attention and prompted me to ask a
question: Considering that the 1972
[CTRL] Canada and Missile Defense
-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.globeandmail.com/gam/International/19991106/UABMMM.html
e-mailable
{{Begin}}
Canada not essential to missile defence, U.S. hints
Detect-and-destroy system capable of protecting North America likely to go
ahead even if Ottawa, Moscow, Beijing disapprove
PAUL KORING and JEFF SALLOT
The Globe and Mail
Saturday, November 6, 1999
Washington and Ottawa -- PAUL KORING in Washington
JEFF SALLOT in Ottawa
The United States is capable of deploying an antimissile system that would
protect nearly all of North America even if Ottawa were to refuse to allow an
early-warning radar site in the Canadian Arctic, according to a senior U.S.
official.
"I'm not sure that Canadian co-operation is absolutely essential," Walter
Slocombe, U.S. defence undersecretary for policy, said yesterday. "We would
like it," he added, saying that talks are under way between the two
governments.
Current U.S. plans call for upgrading early-warning radar installations,
including several in Canada, which, along with space-based satellite detection
systems, would be integrated to identify, track and target incoming ballistic
missiles.
Interceptors would then be launched from a new site to be built in Alaska to
down the incoming missiles before they could reach their targets.
Such a system, designed to protect the entire United States, including Hawaii
and Alaska, would also put most of Canada, and all of its major cities, under a
defensive umbrella.
Ottawa, which fears that the plans could unravel the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, has never formally opposed Washington's interest in the matter.
It has, though, expressed concern that such a system could upset the
international arms-control regimes.
Canadian policy depends on the outcome of U.S.-Russian talks on modifying the
ABM treaty, Foreign Affairs spokesman Michael O'Shaughnessy said yesterday.
Canada abstained on a contentious Russian-sponsored resolution on nuclear arms
control at the United Nations yesterday, despite recent impassioned warnings by
Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy that nuclear annihilation is the
greatest threat facing humanity.
The resolution called for the preservation and strengthening of the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty, a 27-year-old agreement that Mr. Axworthy has praised
as a "cornerstone of strategic stability in the world."
By abstaining, Canada avoids widening the public split between Ottawa and
Washington on nuclear issues that first appeared a year ago.
The United States opposed the resolution yesterday because it wants to
renegotiate the ABM treaty as a prelude to deploying its national missile-
defence system.
Both Russia and China have warned that deploying such a system could reignite a
Cold War-style nuclear arms race.
The ABM treaty was designed to preserve the Cold War's strategic equilibrium of
mutually assured destruction by outlawing the development of antimissile
systems that, by thwarting massive nuclear attacks, could have upset that
balance.
Although the ABM treaty allowed both sides to deploy a defence system over a
small area (the U.S. set one up near missile sites in North Dakota and the
Soviets put theirs around Moscow), the pact was based on the premise that both
sides remained vulnerable to a massive barrage of nuclear-tipped
intercontinental missiles.
Washington claims its current national missile-defence policy is consistent
with the ABM treaty because it is designed only to detect and destroy a handful
of incoming missiles, the kind of attack that could be launched by a "rogue
state." It has said that such a system would be incapable of preventing the
type of attack that is within Russia's capability.
"The purpose of the program is to defend against limited attack," Mr. Slocombe
said yesterday in a speech to the Centres for Strategic and International
Studies. "Over the next 15 years [the United States] will most likely face ICBM
[intercontinental ballistic missile] threats from North Korea, Iran and
possibly Iraq," he said.
While Washington insists that it remains committed to the ABM treaty, it wants
Moscow to agree to reopen the pact and modify it to allow for antimissile
missile systems designed to protect against small-scale nuclear, biological or
chemical attacks.
So far, Moscow has refused. U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen has confirmed
that Washington will pull out of the ABM treaty if it fails to get Russian co-
operation in modifying it.
A decision is required next year and the new system could be deployed by 2005.
{{End}}
AER
~~~
Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960)
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said
it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your
own reason and your
