Washington seeks to devalue Russia's nuclear deterrent.

This was stated by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.

She recalled that the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, and since then Washington has begun to deploy a global missile defense system around the world, consisting of mobile and stationary anti-missile weapons.

“Under far-fetched pretexts, ground-based anti-missile systems are being deployed in close proximity to Russian borders.

Marine facilities are actively developing, which regularly appear near the coast of Russia, ”Zakharova said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

According to her, the attempts of the American authorities to present the global system as a defensive project are "nothing more than a smokescreen."

Zakharova believes that Washington wants to gain an advantage by being able to launch a nuclear strike first.

She added that in the same vein it is worth considering the "development by the Americans of military space capabilities and the creation of non-nuclear weapons of" rapid high-precision strike. "

  • Maria Zakharova

  • globallookpress.com

  • © MFA Russia / via Globallookpress.com

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon intends to spend about $ 18 billion on the development, production and maintenance of missile interceptors from the DPRK or Iran.

As noted in the agency's material, this will be the first major defense public procurement of the Joe Biden administration.

During the development phase of the next-generation interceptor, teams led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will receive a total of $ 13.1 billion, Bloomberg notes.

After the "critical design review", a competitive selection phase will take place, which is likely to be completed by 2026.

After that, 31 new interceptors will be built, including 10 test samples.

They will be stationed at bases in Alaska.

The Pentagon's independent budgeting department estimates that $ 2.3 billion will be spent on the production phase, while maintenance costs in the long term will amount to another $ 2.3 billion.

“We are currently focusing on the technology development phase,” said US Missile Defense Agency spokesman Mark Wright.

According to him, the agency intends to start supplying new interceptors for service "no later than 2028."

Global defense

Recall that the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, which Zakharova mentioned, was signed on May 26, 1972 in Moscow by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and US President Richard Nixon and entered into force on October 3 of the same year.

The agreement was concluded for an unlimited period with the right to withdraw from it by each of the parties.

In accordance with the document, the USSR and the United States pledged not to deploy missile defense systems on the territory of their countries and not create a basis for such a defense, except for missile defense systems that would protect the capitals and areas where silo launchers with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are located.

The treaty also obliged not to create, test or deploy missile defense systems or components of sea, air, space or mobile-ground based.

  • US President Richard Nixon and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev

  • RIA News

  • © Yuri Abramochkin

According to experts, the agreement, on the one hand, made it possible to curb the arms race, and on the other hand, it maintained strategic parity between the United States and the USSR, since none of the powers was immune from a nuclear strike on its territory.

However, already in the 1980s, Washington began to try to circumvent this agreement and upset the existing balance.

Under the Ronald Reagan administration in the United States, the Strategic Defense Initiative program was developed, which involved protecting the entire US territory from ICBMs by deploying interceptors in space.

It received the unofficial name "Star Wars", but was never implemented, although it spurred the arms race.

Reagan's successor as president, George W. Bush, Sr. in 1991 put forward a new concept for the strategic defense initiative program - Global Defense Against Limited Strike.

It allowed intercepting a limited number of missiles.

On March 17, 1999, the US Senate voted in favor of a resolution calling for the deployment of a national missile defense system as part of US government policy.

In the summer of the same year, US President Bill Clinton signed a bill approved by Congress that authorized the Pentagon to deploy elements of this system to protect the entire country from ballistic missiles when technically possible.

The efforts of the American authorities ultimately led to the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.

The corresponding decision was made in June 2002.

In the same year, the creation of national and regional US missile defense systems began.

To carry out the relevant developments, the Missile Defense Agency was created.

  • George W. Bush

  • Reuters

  • © Alyssa Pointer

The administration of George W. Bush has achieved some success in improving the multilayer missile defense system in the Asia-Pacific region, where the United States is betting on the development of the naval component of the tactical missile defense system, which operates in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

According to analysts, US Navy ships with a naval version of the Aegis missile system on board can move in international waters, which gives them the ability to block ballistic missiles in the middle and final stages of their flight path.

After Barack Obama came to power, the United States did not abandon its ambitious plans to create a missile defense system, but decided to make it more flexible and mobile.

The initiative became known as a non-strategic adapted missile defense system.

It includes a missile defense system in the United States and deployed elements of an American missile defense system in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

To date, 44 silo-based interceptor missiles have been installed in the United States.

In addition, elements of the American missile defense system in the form of Patriot mobile complexes are deployed in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Japan, Turkey, Israel, and the Marshall Islands have provided their territories to host the radars.

A naval component of the American missile defense system has been formed in Europe.

It consists of several destroyers with Aegis and SM-3 interceptor missiles.

They are stationed at the Rota naval base in Spain.

The ground-based missile defense component in Europe consists of the AN / TPY-2 mobile radar station in Turkey and the Aegis Ashore complexes in Romania and Poland.

At the same time, the missile defense base in the Romanian Deveselu is already working, and the dates for the commissioning of similar systems in Poland near the village of Redzikovo have been postponed several times.

According to the latest data, they are expected to start functioning no earlier than 2022.

"Create an imbalance in nuclear weapons"

Russia has repeatedly expressed its concerns about the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and Washington's development of a missile defense system.

Moscow believes that America needs a global missile defense system not to protect itself from Iran and North Korea, but to zero out the Russian nuclear missile potential.

According to experts, the fears of the Russian Federation are not groundless.

According to them, the proof that the US missile defense is not aimed at Iran and the DPRK is the refusal of the Americans to create a joint missile defense system with the Russian Federation.

Russia put forward a proposal to work together on such a system back in the early 2000s after the United States left the ABM Treaty.

In addition, Moscow notes that the Aegis complexes with Mk-41 launchers can be used not only to intercept, but also to launch cruise missiles, which turns these systems into an element of Washington's offensive potential.

Military expert Alexei Leonkov believes that the United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002 in order to consolidate its global military dominance.

  • Aegis Ashore Complex

  • globallookpress.com

  • © US Navy

“The United States began to form a new strategy of instant global strike, where the missile defense system played a key role.

The new plan assumed that the Pentagon would deliver a preemptive preemptive strike, destroying the nuclear potential of the Russian Federation or China, after which American missile defense systems finish off all the remaining missiles that launch as a retaliatory strike against US actions, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

The fact that these systems are aimed at the Russian Federation and the PRC is evidenced by their location, Leonkov says.

"American missile defense systems were deployed in the most successful places to intercept Russian missiles, so explanations about Iran and China are untenable," the analyst said.

A similar point of view is shared by the leading expert of the RISS Research Coordination Center Sergey Ermakov.

"First of all, missile defense is directed against the geopolitical opponents of the United States - the Russian Federation and the PRC, although it also concerns the DPRK and Iran," the analyst said in a conversation with RT.

At the same time, Ermakov believes that the project of a global missile defense system, which would protect the entire territory of the United States, is by no means indisputable from the point of view of effectiveness.

“There is no one hundred percent guarantee that a missile defense system can be made to protect the entire US territory.

But at the same time, an attempt to create such a system can give its owners a false sense of security.

This, in turn, provokes further militarization of US foreign policy.

Washington, believing that the country is protected from all sides, may take inappropriate actions, including delivering the first blows against its opponents, ”the expert says.

In these conditions, analysts say, the Russian Federation is forced to invest in the modernization of the nuclear triad and the development of the latest weapons systems that can overcome any missile defense systems.

Moscow already possesses such complexes.

“Washington is trying to create an imbalance in nuclear weapons.

The only thing that holds the United States back is Russia's success in creating new weapons systems that are part of the nuclear triad, including the Avangard hypersonic gliding unit and the RS-28 Sarmat missiles, Leonkov concluded.