As the southern Caucasus is added to possible US plans for a missile defense shield in Russia's back yard, Moscow responds harshly, and, many say, with good reason.
The US state and defense departments insist that the planned Central European missile shield deployment could shoot down a certain number of ballistic missiles fired by Iran - if it actually worked - but would be helpless to stop a nuclear strike by Russia, hypothetically speaking.
Still, the Kremlin has been up in arms since last month, when US officials reiterated the White House's intention to negotiate the deployment of 10 missile interceptors in Poland and one missile radar in the Czech Republic, ostensibly designed to deflect a missile attack by Iran.

Additionally, talk of adding the southern Caucasus to the anti-missile defense plan has not been received well in Moscow.
Earlier this month, the US military announced plans to deploy an additional mobile radar in the southern Caucasus - in either Azerbaijan, Armenia or Georgia - to feed data on launches in Iran to the main radar in the Czech Republic.
"We would like to place a radar in […] the Caucasus," US Air Force Lieutenant General Henry Obering, director of the US Missile Defense Agency, said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on 1 March.

Adding the radar in the southern Caucasus, Russia's backyard, to the planned configuration of ballistic missile defense elements in Europe would be "useful, but not essential," he said. "We still have time to coordinate its precise location," Obering said. It would take a couple of days to deploy the radar, which would detect missile launches in Iran and then transmit data to a stationary radar in the Czech Republic, according to the commander.

Responding to this statement, officials in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia echoed each other in asserting that the US had not approached their governments officially, at least not yet. However, while Armenia's Defense Ministry, which has strong security ties to Russia and maintains good relations with Iran, pre-empted any such approach by saying it would not agree to host a radar, Azeri and Georgian officials would not rule out such a possibility.
Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry told the Russian daily Kommersant last week that it would be up to the president of the Muslim republic, which already hosts a Russian-operated early warning radar, to decide whether to accept a mobile radar.

Georgia's Defense Ministry had no comment last week, but several members of the country's parliament have publicly welcomed the idea.
"I think any kind of Georgia's integration into European structures, including the military, would be good for our country," Nika Rurua, deputy head of the parliamentary defense and security committee, told Reuters in an interview last week.
In his 1 March remarks Obering insisted that that the radar would not be able to monitor launches of Russia's Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM's) even if pointed toward Russia, Kommersant reported on 3 March.

A top Russian commander responded to the announcement on 2 March saying that the planned radar indeed could not undermine Russia's capabilities, but Russian military may still respond to the deployment.
"We have everything needed to adequately respond to all these deployments," Russian news agencies quoted Russia's air force commander General Vladimir Mikhailov as saying. "They have lots of cash, let them spend it.

"
Russian commanders were not so calm when reacting to Obering's 22 February announcement that the US was negotiating with the Czech Republic and Poland to host powerful stationary radar and 10 missile interceptors, respectively, by 2011.
Additionally, John Rood, assistant secretary for international security and non-proliferation, said on 27 February that Ukraine was among the countries "engaged in [US] missile defense efforts."
Rood did not specify exactly how Ukraine was engaged.

Ukrainian officials have not commented on Rood's statement, although Defense Minister Sergei Grytsenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych both said they were concerned about the US' plans.
The assistant secretary also criticized Russia for opposing the US missile defense plans, which he claimed did not target Russia.
"It is regrettable that recent public remarks from Russian officials and other critics would have you believe that the very topic of missile defense is controversial - perhaps even destabilizing, Rood said.

"And I would point out that Russia clearly believes in the value of missile defense as it continues to maintain a missile defense system around its major population center, Moscow, and has developed defenses against shorter-range missiles."
While US missile defense plans vis-a-vis former Soviet republics are tentative and may remain on paper, they are already putting a great strain on relations between US and Russia as Moscow grows increasingly suspicious of the US long-term plans.
The Kremlin has already made it clear that it is "not buying" US assurances on the missile defense.

"We were once told that NATO will not be expanded and no military infrastructure would be deployed in Eastern Europe. The time for talking is gone and we want to make decisions on how to ensure our security based on real facts," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a recent interview with the television network TVTs.
In addition, some Russian policymakers believe that their decisions should be based on the assumption that there is a strong probability that the planned missile system will expand and become so sophisticated that it will eventually undermine the Russian strategic nuclear triad's capabilities and tilt the balance between the two countries in favor of Washington.

Some independent experts concur that the planned system may come to target Russian forces eventually.
"This system would be able to start working within 20 years and the current crisis with Iran might be resolved by then, whereas the infrastructure would be already there to stay beyond the reason or excuse [for why] it is now being built. There is no guarantee that the system won't be used against Russia," Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow branch of the Center for Defense Information, a US think tank, told ISN Security Watch.

Both Safranchuk and Alexander Pikaev, an independent Russian defense expert, noted that the system was being built as Russia prepared to decommission hundreds of Soviet-made ICBMs in what would reduce its strategic nuclear arsenal to some 1,700 warheads in the next decade.
"Russia's so-called launch under the attack capability will become insufficient and this would tilt the balance and what makes Russia concerned that it may be blackmailed," Safranchuk said.
Both Safranchuk and Pikaev said the US' plans were already taking their toll on relations between the two countries.

And while Moscow will continue to cooperate in areas where its interests converge with Washington's - such as the war on international terrorist networks - it may counter Washington on issues such as Iran's nuclear program and US presence in Central Asia, Pikaev warned.
There are signs that the Bush administration may be responding to the Kremlin's grievances, but some scholars say the US has not sufficiently tended to this important relationship, the New York Times reported on Monday.
"That is not to say that every objection and concern has to be accommodated or that they have some kind of veto over our program," a senior US administration official told the daily.

Senior administration officials said the initiative would also involve a more intensive dialogue between Russian and American militaries, a forum that might lend itself to broader technical exchanges about Washington's missile defense plans, according to the US daily.
But in the meantime, all is not well.
Russia is reportedly revising its military doctrine to identify NATO and the West as its greatest danger.

In a statement posted on its website, the Russian Security Council said it no longer considered global terrorism as its biggest danger, but was developing a new national security strategy that reflected changing "geo-political" realities, and the fact that rival military alliances were becoming "stronger [...

] especially NATO."
"There have been changes in the character of the threat to the military security of Russia. More and more leading world states are seeking to upgrade their national armed forces.

The configuration has changed," the council said.
Simon Saradzhyan is a veteran security and defense writer based in Moscow. He is a co-founder of the Eurasian Security Studies Center in Moscow.