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                    NATO Continues Plans for Missile Defense

   by Andre deNesnera

   Concluding their summit in Chicago, leaders of NATO's 28 member states
   agreed on a unified plan to gradually wind down the war in Afghanistan.
   The plan, which calls for Afghan security forces to take the lead in
   combat operations by the middle of 2013, sees all NATO combat forces
   withdrawn from the country by December 2014.
   While Afghanistan was the main topic at the summit, NATO leaders also
   reaffirmed their commitment to a ballistic-missile defense system.
   Experts call the plan more flexible than former President George W.
   Bush's call to station 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar
   facility in the Czech Republic, a proposal which President Barack Obama
   shelved in 2009.
   The new plan would deploy a system of anti-missile interceptors based
   at sea on destroyers and cruisers coupled with advanced land-based
   versions, some of which would be based in former Warsaw Pact countries.
   Following the NATO summit, President Obama thanked the allies who are
   contributing to the defense system.
   "Our defense radar in Turkey will be placed under NATO control. Spain,
   Romania and Poland have agreed to host key U.S. assets. The Netherlands
   will be upgrading radars and we look forward to contributions from
   other allies," Obama said.
   Moscow, which has consistently opposed U.S. plans for a
   ballistic-missile defense system in Europe, does not believe the
   system's purpose is to defend against missile attacks from countries
   such as Iran, and Russian officials see it as aimed against Moscow - a
   charge the White House denies.
   "Since this system is neither aimed at nor undermines Russia's
   strategic deterrent, I continue to believe that missile defense can be
   an area of cooperation with Russia," said Obama.
   Newly re-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin declined his
   invitation to attend the NATO summit, saying that he had to stay in
   Moscow to form a new government. He sent Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev
   instead.
   Russia expert Stephen Cohen of New York University sees another reason
   for Putin's decision.
   "He does not want to give any symbolic - at this crucial moment - sense
   that he is acquiescing to what remains the very hard American line on
   missile defense," he said. "Missile defense is now officially a NATO
   program discussed at the NATO summit in Chicago. It would look bad for
   Putin [to be] schmoozing it up with Obama at the very moment that the
   United States and NATO are congratulating themselves on the continued
   expansion of missile defense."
   John Parker of National Defense University said the Russian leadership
   has a stake in criticizing the missile-defense plans.
   "Putin and Medvedev have put out a substantially larger military
   rearmament budget between now and the year 2020, and there are a lot of
   lobbies that want their piece of that military budget pie," he said.
   "And so it is in their interest to play up this threat so that they get
   the money to build the weapons that, presumably, will counter that
   threat."
   Looking ahead, experts do not expect Moscow and Washington to resolve
   their differences about missile defense any time soon. Progress may be
   possible sometime next year at the earliest, they said, after the U.S.
   presidential elections.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/nato_continues_plans_for_missile_defense/920174.html