Russian Expert Says No Breakthrough in US NMD TechnologyThe United States has not made any remarkable breakthroughs in developing a missile defense technology, Russia's outstanding missile expert Dr. Yury Sizov, one of the designers of Russia's S-300 anti-aircraft systems, said Thursday.The high-speed interceptor missiles to be used for the U.S. national missile defense (NMD) program are still being tested, and the "not quite successful results" indicate that the U.S. interruption missiles "cannot guarantee destruction of intercontinental ballistic missile warheads even in attacks of low intensity," Sizov told the Itar-Tass news agency. Sizov's remarks came before the visit to Moscow on Friday by U. S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowits who will try to persuade Russian leaders to accept a U.S.-designed missile defense plan. If Washington wants to deploy an effective national missile defense shield, it has to put exotic weapons, such as laser and beam and electromagnetic guns into outer space. But there will be a lot of difficulties in developing and deploying such space weapons, he said. For example, the Pentagon plans to produce laser by using nuclear explosion power, but the power transition device will be destroyed in the nuke blast at the same time, so such laser weapons can be used only once, said Sizov. Making space laser weapons will be costly, he added. Moreover, "Space militarization would cause a worldwide negative resonance and opposition," warned the scientist, adding that Russia must tell the White House the above-mentioned facts during the future talks with the U.S. on the missile defense problems. He stressed that the best solution to the NMD problem is to keep the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in effect and intact. Earlier this month, U.S. President George W. Bush declared plans to deploy a "space shield" system against missile attacks from what the U.S. called" rogue states, in a move to alter the U. S.-Soviet Union ABM treaty. |
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