----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 7:18 PM Subject: [STOPNATO] Russia / U.S. joint TMD exercises STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] GET PAINLESS BUSINESS FINANCING! Comparison shop for, apply for, and secure financing from the nation's best-known financial institutions. One short application gets you the financing your business needs. Get the financing you need today at LiveCapital.com! http://www.bcentral.com/fcsponsor/livecapital
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/062900russia-us-missile.html New York Times -- June 29, 2000 Joint Exercise on Missiles Seen for U.S. and Russia By MICHAEL R. GORDON MOSCOW, June 28 -- In an effort to broaden their military cooperation, Russia and the United States are planning to conduct a joint exercise of their defenses against short- and medium-range missiles, a senior United States official said today. The aim is to rehearse the procedures for coordinating Russian and American theater missile defenses against a common foe, American officials said. The exercise is likely to take place at Fort Bliss, a United States Army post in Texas, before the end of the year. Theater defenses are antimissile systems like the Russian S-300 or the American Patriot that are intended to counter short- or medium-range missiles -- typically missiles with ranges between a few hundred and a few thousand miles -- that could threaten American troops abroad or endanger the United States' allies. The plan for the joint exercise does not mean that Moscow has dropped its opposition to the Clinton administration's proposal to erect a missile shield over the United States. Russia still fears that the administration plan, which is intended to counter intercontinental-range missiles, would give the United States a strategic advantage. But theater systems have emerged as the one missile defense area in which Washington and Moscow seem able to cooperate, albeit for their own reasons. "We are resuming our longstanding cooperation in theater missile defense," a senior American official said. Plans for the exercise were discussed in talks here by senior Russian and American defense officials. The broad aim of the talks was to restore the cooperation between the two militaries that existed before NATO's war with Yugoslavia. The two sides, for instance, discussed a plan to have Russian peacekeepers from Kosovo train American soldiers for that mission at the United States military training center in Hohenfels, Germany. The Russian motivation to cooperate on theater missile defense is clear. Moscow sees the administration's plan for a national missile defense as a threat and is energetically advocating theater missile defense as an alternative. In meetings with American officials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has asserted that theater defenses could be used to shoot down enemy missiles in the first few minutes after their launching, when they are relatively slow and their rocket engines are still burning, an approach that is known in the United States as a "boost phase" defense. This, the Russians suggest, could protect the United States and Europe from threats from states like North Korea, dispensing with the need for the administration's system, which involves the deployment of 20 missile interceptors and a battle-management radar in Alaska by 2005. The Pentagon has a different motivation in seeking to cooperate on missile defense. American officials are eager to draw the Russians into a discussion of potential missile threats and ways to counter them in the hope that the Kremlin's opposition to national missile defense might wane. And they want to learn about Russian technology. The cooperation itself involves a "command post" exercise at Fort Bliss, the El Paso home of the 32d Army Air and Missile Defense Command, according to a United States official. That means that Russian and American officers would practice the procedures that are needed to track enemy missiles and then coordinate and fire Russian and American antimissile defenses. No "enemy" missiles would actually be launched or shot down. Russians and American officers have been involved in two previous exercises -- in Moscow 1996 and in Colorado Springs in 1998 -- but they have essentially been computer simulations. Another round of talks is planned before the date of the command post exercise is set; it is expected to be held in the fall. "This is an attempt to move out of institute and simulations into the field," a United States official said. "It is still a simulation but under more realistic field conditions." Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, a Republican influential on missile defense, said the Pentagon had been too slow to cooperate with the Russians on theater defense, in part because the administration was initially opposed to the idea of a national missile defense. "We should have been doing this all along," Mr. Weldon said in a telephone interview. "We have sent the wrong signals to the Russians, and now they wonder why we want to get them involved." Mr. Weldon recently met with Russia's Deputy Defense Minister, Nikolai Mikhailov, who said Moscow was interested in working with the Americans in developing a new system, the S-500. But Mr. Mikhailov did not describe that system in any detail. Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk [EMAIL PROTECTED]
