Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07USNATO264
2007-04-23 16:57:00
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Mission USNATO
Cable title:  

NATO-RUSSIA: MISSILE DEFENSE DEBATE PLAYING OUT AS

Tags:  NATO PREL RU 
pdf how-to read a cable
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C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000264 

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NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/19/2017
TAGS: NATO PREL RU
SUBJECT: NATO-RUSSIA: MISSILE DEFENSE DEBATE PLAYING OUT AS
DEBATE BETWEEN U.S. AND RUSSIA

REF: USNATO 257

Classified By: Ambassador Victoria Nuland, reasons 1.4 (b and d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000264

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/19/2017
TAGS: NATO PREL RU
SUBJECT: NATO-RUSSIA: MISSILE DEFENSE DEBATE PLAYING OUT AS
DEBATE BETWEEN U.S. AND RUSSIA

REF: USNATO 257

Classified By: Ambassador Victoria Nuland, reasons 1.4 (b and d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The April 20th meeting of the NATO-Russia
Council (NRC) reinforced with missile defense (MD) experts
demonstrated again the U.S. commitment to transparency with
our NATO allies and with Russia on our MD plans, while the
Russians focused on trying to paint the U.S. proposed system
to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic as destabilizing
and unnecessary. The Allies gradually rallied to limit
Russian room to maneuver in their responses to the Russian
presentation and cited the NRC as the appropriate forum for
the discussion. But many Allies still were unwilling to wade
too deeply into what they probably regard primarily as a
U.S.-Russian exchange. END SUMMARY

LTG Obering Frames the Issue for Russia and the Alliance
-------------- --------------

2. (C) The Secretary General (SYG) Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
opened the meeting by welcoming missile defense experts and
highlighted that dialogue and cooperation in forums such as
the NRC is essential to meet security challenges, and that
such cooperation had put missile defense on the right track.
Lieutenant-General Trey Obering, U.S. Missile Defense Agency
Director (aided by Paul Kozlusky who presented additional
slides on the threat) delivered a presentation that focused
on providing the Allies our assessment of the real and
emerging ballistic missile (BM) threat from states such as
Iran and North Korea; system capability including what it
could and could not do; and the potential for further
cooperation with the Russian Federation and the Alliance.
Following LTGen Obering,s presentation, Assistant Secretary
of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation
John Rood gave a readout of his recent trip to Moscow and
meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Kiselyak. A/S
Rood highlighted the meeting,s healthy dialogue and said
that the U.S. made wide-ranging cooperation proposals to the
Russians across the full range of MD development and
deployment. The U.S. distributed copies of the non-paper on
potential areas of MD cooperation to the members of the NRC,

as had been done earlier in the NAC, and stressed that the
U.S. stands ready to follow up with Russia on the proposals.

Russia: Missile Defense is a De-stabilizing Factor for Europe
-------------- --------------

3. (C) The Russian delegation was led by Lieutenant-General
Eveginiy Buzhinkskiy, head of the Russian Ministry of
Defense,s International Military Cooperation Department and
Director of the Department of Security and Disarmament
Antonov. They provided the Council with a briefing
presentation on Russia,s reaction to the proposed U.S.
system. Moscow,s argument stressed four main themes: 1)
The U.S. had exaggerated the BM threat from Iran and North
Korea, citing effective proliferation controls (MTCR),limits
of SCUD technology, and the lack of long-range testing
capability for Iran, which would continue to hinder their
respective strategic programs; 2) The system,s basing in
Poland and the Czech Republic is not ideal for countering
threats from a southern location like Iran,(they claim that
France, Turkey, and Italy would be more logical) arguing that
instead the system,s deployment in Eastern Europe could be
used against Russian ICBMs; 3) Citing the Chinese example,
the proposed system could eventually have an anti-satellite
capability; 4) The MD system would be destabilizing for
European security since it would not provide equal protection
and that Russia would be forced to take corresponding
countermeasures. The Russians tried to frame the issue as a
new and unnecessary threat for European stability and
contrasted the proposed system with their own "benign"
initiatives in theater missile defense, an area of
cooperation that has wide support within NATO. Lastly, the
Russians told the Council that cooperation with the U.S. on
MD will not entirely address Moscow,s concerns. They said
that U.S. mobile/orbital radars in the Czech Republic and the
Caucasus could be aimed against Russia and that there was
nothing that could prevent the U.S. from increasing the
number of ground based interceptors (GBI) based in Europe and
creating multiple hit-to-kill warheads on high velocity GBIs
in the future.


Allies: Gradually Rally to Hem Russia In
--------------

4. (C) While Allies universally welcomed the exchange of
views within the NRC, citing it as the appropriate forum to
discuss MD, they generally appeared unwilling to get squarely
in the middle on an issue that they probably see as a
U.S.-Russian exchange. Numerous allies welcomed the U.S.
willingness to engage the Russians on the full spectrum of MD
cooperation, with the Canadian PermRep, supported later by
France and the Netherlands, requesting to know Russia,s
reaction to the U.S. proposals soon. Allies also stressed
the importance of next week,s political level discussion at
the meeting of the NRC during the Foreign Ministerial in
Oslo. Although a range of Allies (including the Netherlands,
Canada, Spain, Czech Republic, and Italy) were in favor of
increased sharing of information with Russia in the hope of
clarifying the threat, the UK, Canada, Czech Republic and
Poland also questioned the Russian threat assessment
affirmatively stating they believed a missile threat existed.
The Allies (including the Germans),however, were careful
not to provide a divided front in face of the Russians saying
that the full range of tools should be used to counter
evolving threats including diplomacy, proliferation controls,
and military options. Germany and the UK also noted that MD
bolsters deterrence options and can dissuade potential
proliferators from offensive missile system development.
Norway also specifically rebutted the Russian suggestion that
the Vardo radar could be used to expand U.S. plans, saying it
is not part of the U.S. MD architecture as it had previously
noted to the Russian government.

U.S. is Serious about Cooperation
--------------

5. (C) Ambassador Nuland agreed with Allies that the NRC is a
good forum for MD dialogue and that the recent U.S. bilateral
cooperation proposals with Russia could be adapted for use in
the NRC. She further stressed the proposed system is about
North Korea and Iran, and not Russia, reiterating Secretary
Gates, comments that "one Cold War was more than enough".

MDA Rebuts Russian Claims Authoritatively
--------------

6. (C) LTG Obering concluded the meeting by giving a strong
point-by-point rebuttal of the Russian arguments saying that
locating the proposed system in other countries, such as
Turkey, was not ideal given its close proximity and would not
provide optimal coverage of Europe. He further went on to
say that his agency has no budget for increasing the amount
of planned GBIs and that the system does not have an
anti-satellite capability due to its design and the lack of
such a mandate for the GBI system. He also said future plans
to increase the number of hit-to-kill warheads on the GBIs
could not mature before 2017 and would not destroy multiple
offensive missiles, but rather would give more chances to
destroy the more sophisticated threat missiles ten years from
now. He explained that Iran or North Korea may have
maneuvering and decoy deployment capability for their
missiles by then.


7. (C) COMMENT: We got considerable traction with Allies with
our continuous transparency in NATO and the NRC and
particularly with our cooperation offers to Russia. If
Moscow does not step up to the plate on cooperation, Allies
will be disappointed and much less sympathetic to Russian
concerns.

NULAND