Pentagon Building Cruise Missile Shield Across US, Citing 'Russian Threat'

Source : http://sputniknews.com

As Baltic and Nordic countries continue to express unfounded fears about Russian aggression, paranoia fever appears to have its hold on the United States. The Pentagon is quietly installing a cruise missile defense shield in major US cities, despite the financial fiasco of previous attempts to install similar technology.

"A handful of senior military officials, including several current or past NORTHCOM commanders, have been among those quietly dinging the bell about cruise missile threats, and it’s beginning to be heard," Thomas Karako, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Defense One.

To counter that threat, the Pentagon is working to install a high-tech radar system that would track incoming, low-flying missiles. Installed in aerostat balloons over major cities, as well as onboard warships off the coast, the radar would transmit warning signals to F-16 fighter jets if an enemy missile were detected.

The Pentagon has remained fairly quiet about the details of the missile defense shield, giving little indication of what the total cost would be to the taxpayer. But the cost of other failed defense shield attempts could provide some idea.

Last year, the Los Angeles Times reported on the costly endeavor of the Midcourse Defense System (GMD), a shield developed by Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. During a trial run, the GMD failed 8 out of 16 tests, with each test costing $200 million.

That, of course, was only a fraction of the total.

"Although American taxpayers have spent $40 billion during the past decade to develop the GMD system, the missile shield’s performance is spotty at best," according to the LA Times, "even in carefully choreographed tests that are more predictable and less challenging than an actual attack would be."

Earlier this year, it was reported that the US Defense Department had requested a total of $8.8 billion in the 2016 budget for all missile defense systems. Given the complexities of developing a system of countering cruise missiles, which are relatively small and agile, a large portion of those funds could go toward the new project.

"While ballistic missile defense has now become established as a key military capability, the corresponding counters to cruise missiles have been prioritized far more slowly," Karako said.

"In some ways, this is understandable, in terms of the complexity of the threat, but sophisticated cruise missile technologies now out there are just not going away and we are going to have to find a way to deal with this – for the homeland, for allies and partners broad, and for regional combatant commanders."

Even if the technology is developed effectively, implementing the system will also prove costly.

"This is a big country and we probably couldn’t protect the entire place from cruise missile attack unless we want to break the bank," Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech. "But there are important areas in this country we need to make sure are defended from that kind of attack."

But all the money being poured into the project seems especially pointless given that it’s meant to defend against an illusory threat from Russia.

"The only nation that has an effective cruise missile capability is Russia," Admiral William Gortney, head of US Northern Command said during a House Armed Services hearing in March.

These concerns were echoed by former NORAD commander General Charles Jacoby last August during a missile defense conference.

"We’ve made a case that growing cruise missile technology in our state adversaries, like Russia and China, present a real problem for our current defenses," Jacoby said.

The US isn’t the only one spending millions on false threats from an "aggressive" Russia. Earlier on Friday, it was reported that the Finnish government had bid $3.72 million on a plot of land within its own borders to prevent a Russian citizen from obtaining the deed.

Sweden has also increased its fearmongering, tossing out baseless claims about Russian submarines in its territorial waters.

"This was done, as far as can be judged, to ramp up the anti-Russian hysteria and give a propagandist boost to the myth of a 'military threat' from the East," the Russian foreign ministry responded in a statement.

Russia’s deputy defense minister Anatoly Antonov echoed the sentiment:

"The US is ramping up the issue of ‘Russian violations’ to justify their own ostensibly responsive military action that would be aimed at ensuring American 'leadership' in confrontation with the mythical ‘Russian military threat’ that Washington drums up regardless of all facts to the contrary," he said earlier this month in response to the US accusing Russia of missile violations.

It looks like that "anti-Russia hysteria" will now cost Americans billions.

 

Pentagon asks skeptical Congress to ease Russia rocket ban

Via : http://www.strategic-culture.org

The Pentagon has said it would face “significant challenges” to accessing space if Congress does not ease restrictions on the use of Russian rocket engines, according to a report.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent a letter to senior lawmakers last month, demanding the repeal of a ban on Russian rocket engines, The Washington Times reported on Monday.

The military leaders said the restrictions should be relaxed so that United Launch Alliance — a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin — could purchase 14 RD-180 Russian engines to power Lockheed’s Atlas V rocket.

However, Congressional leaders have accused the military of hampering their efforts to eradicate US independence on foreign rocket engines.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said the Pentagon’s views are misguided.

“I think the Pentagon is trying to create a bit of fear in the short term with the idea that they can pile up Russian motors that we’ll be eventually forced to use, Hunter told The Times.

Senators are currently considering amendments to the 2016 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would maintain the current ban on Russian rocket engines.

Sen. Joni Ernst, a freshman Republican from Iowa, has introduced provisions to the annual military spending bill requiring the White House to keep the ban in place until it can show that Russia is no longer “violating the territorial integrity” of Ukraine, or supporting pro-Russia forces in the east.

Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said last month the ban was designed to prevent “over $300 million of precious US defense resources from subsidizing [President] Vladimir Putin and the Russian military industrial base.”

Carter and Clapper argued in their letter that transitioning from Russian engines into domestic ones may be more difficult than it seems.

Russia says will retaliate if US weapons stationed on its borders

Source : http://mobile.reuters.com

A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia's border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.

The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies' territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be the Kremlin's next target.

Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.

But others in the region were more cautious, fearing their countries could be caught in the middle of a new arms race between Russia and the United States.

"If heavy U.S. military equipment, including tanks, artillery batteries and other equipment really does turn up in countries in eastern Europe and the Baltics, that will be the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War," Russian defense ministry official General Yuri Yakubov said.

"Russia will have no option but to build up its forces and resources on the Western strategic front," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

He said the Russian response was likely to include speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordered by Poland and Lithuania, and beefing up Russian forces in ex-Soviet Belarus.

"Our hands are completely free to organize retaliatory steps to strengthen our Western frontiers," Yakubov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said: "We hope that reason will prevail and the situation in Europe will be prevented from sliding into a new military confrontation which may have dangerous consequences."

ALLIED ARMY

The Pentagon said on Monday the U.S. military was in the process of deciding where to store a battalion's worth of military equipment in Europe. The decision is part of a long-term effort to maintain equipment for a heavy brigade in the region to facilitate U.S. rotational training with NATO allies.

"This is purely positioning of equipment to better facilitate our ability to conduct training," said Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, noting that two battalions of equipment already was stored there.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, told Reuters in December the equipment set for the full brigade would be about 160 M-1 tanks plus M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers. A Pentagon official said on Monday the total number of vehicles would be about 220.

U.S. officials said a proposal under review envisages storing a company's worth of equipment, enough for 150 soldiers, in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Enough equipment for a company or possibly a battalion, or about 750 soldiers, would also be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary.

The idea was that, in the event of an attack on NATO's eastern border, the United States could quickly fly in troops who would use the equipment, cutting out the weeks or months it would take to transport convoys of gear overland across Europe.

However, the U.S. proposal could cause tensions within NATO, an alliance that often struggles to accommodate more hawkish members such as Poland or Lithuania alongside other states that want to avoid a military stand-off with Russia at any cost.

Speaking after talks in Warsaw with the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said he expected a final U.S. decision on the equipment within a few weeks.

"They know how important this is to us, because we want to build a permanent U.S. presence, the allied army here on the Polish territory," Siemoniak told reporters.

"It seems to me that such enterprises, that is equipment warehouses, are a very crucial step when it comes to building such a presence."

A spokesman for Lithuania's foreign ministry, Kestutis Vaskelevicius, said any increased NATO presence was intended to improve the security of the Baltic states. "(It) is not directed against anyone, and it does not threaten anyone," he said.

 

TWO-SPEED NATO

Since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and a rebellion by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states - countries with a history of Russian occupation - have pushed NATO for a muscular response.

But proposals for a permanent NATO combat presence in eastern Europe were blocked by Germany and some other alliance members. Instead, NATO intensified exercises, rotating troops through the region and set up a command headquarters for a rapid reaction force in north-west Poland.

Sources close to the government in Poland, and other states in the region, said that response persuaded them they could not fully rely on NATO, and that their best bet in the event of an attack was that the U.S. military would come to their aid.

At a NATO summit in Wales last year, agreement was reached on "pre-positioning" military equipment in eastern Europe, but the Pentagon's plan appeared to go further and faster than measures envisaged by the alliance.

The initiative could force some former Warsaw Pact countries now in NATO to make uncomfortable choices.

Bulgaria and Hungary both say they are committed members of the alliance, but they have maintained close cultural and commercial ties to Moscow, and may not want to jeopardize those links by storing U.S. military equipment on their soil.

Rosen Plevneliev, the Bulgarian President, said it was too early to say if his country would join the Pentagon's initiative.

"At the current moment there is no proposal whatsoever to the Bulgarian government upon which we can start discussions," he said.

US Deploys Heavy Weaponry in Europe; Russia to 'Answer Adequately'

Source : http://sputniknews.com

Russia will provide an ‘adequate answer’ to the deployment of the US heavy weaponry in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, a senior Defense Ministry official said on Monday, commenting on earlier claims that the Pentagon is poised to station battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weaponry in several Eastern European countries.

“In case the US heavy weaponry, including battle tanks, artillery systems and other combat weaponry is going to be deployed in a number of Eastern European countries and the Baltics, it is going to be the most aggressive step of Pentagon and NATO since the end of the last century's Cold War,” the Russian media quoted Yuri Yakubov, the Coordinator of the Department of the General Inspectors of the Russian Defense Ministry, as saying.

“And there will be nothing left for Russia but to build up its might and means at strategic western locations,” added the senior Defense Ministry official.

Russia will commence by reinforcing its military along the perimeter of its Western border, including new tank, artillery and aviation units.

The Russian Ground Forces’ guided missile brigade stationed in the westernmost Kaliningrad region will be promptly reequipped with the Iskander-M ballistic missile systems, Yakubov added, and Russia’s combined forces in Belarus will also be considerably reequipped.

The announcement comes as a comment following US media speculation that “the Pentagon is poised to deploy battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for up to 5,000 US troops in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries.”

As the media put it, "a company's worth of equipment — enough for about 150 soldiers — would be stored in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Enough for a company or possibly a battalion — about 750 soldiers — would be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary".

The senior Defense Ministry official however stressed that Russia has completely withdrawn from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and won’t be bound by any lateral restrictions, as it was earlier, on the number of tanks, aircraft or artillery systems it was allowed to have in its near-border territories.

“We have completely withdrawn from this treaty which many European countries have not stuck to and we have a free hand in organizing responsive measures and strengthening our western borders,” he said.

The Kremlin so far has not commented on the issue.

“There was no official announcement from the US, therefore I have nothing to say. We will comment when there is any,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday