Russian missiles could overwhelm limited missile defense, destroy U.S.

WASHINGTON -- The United States has concluded that a limited national missile defense system would not prevent Russian nuclear annihilation.

U.S. documents assert that Russia could destroy the United States with hundreds of nuclear warheads even if Moscow underwent a U.S. first strike. The documents were posted last week by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The Washington-based organization said the documents were presented to Russia in January by U.S. officials during negotiations to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that would allow deployment of the first phase of a U.S. national missile defense system.

The United States plans to develop a defense system composed of 100 interceptors based in Alaska meant to stop a limited nuclear attack by so-called rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. The U.S. document said the NMD could at most destroy 20-25 warheads, according to a report by Middle East Newline.

The document said that a two-site system with 200 interceptor missiles could destroy 40 to 50 warheads.

"We do not think that reducing Russia's ability to counterattack by 20 to 50 warheads would substantially affect Russia's strategic deterrent, even at START III levels," the document said.

The arguments were also voiced by John Holum, the State Department's senior adviser for arms control and international security. Holum is also President Bill Clinton's chief adviser on nonproliferation.

The United States, the document said, does not believe that upgraded early warning radars will suffice to defend "against attack by more than a dozen warheads accompanied by the simplest defense penetration aids."

Under START III, Russia has proposed reducing the arsenals of Moscow and Washington to as low as 1,500 warheads. START II allows up to 3,500 warheads.

The U.S. document that the START III levels allows for mutual destruction. "These strategic forces give each side the certain ability to carry out an annihilating counterattack on the other side regardless of the conditions under which the war began," the document said. "Forces of this size can easily penetrate a limited NMD system of the type that the United States is now developing."

In Moscow, a senior Russian defense official asserted that the U.S. national missile defense system is aimed at Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles. "The Russian military leadership has no doubts about this," said Col..Gen. Leonid Ivashov, chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's international military cooperation department.