NATO Ratchets Up Missile Defense Despite Russian Criticism - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/world/europe/nato-russia-poland.html
NATO’s European missile defense system goes live on Thursday when a base in Romania becomes operational. The next day, Poland is scheduled to break ground on its NATO missile-defense base.
The decision by the United States and its allies in Eastern Europe to proceed with ballistic missile defense in the face of increasingly loud Russian criticism is an important stage in the alliance’s new stance toward Moscow.
Those deployments will be coupled this spring with major military exercises in Poland and the Baltics, with significant American participation and a beefed-up rapid reaction force of up to 5,000 troops.
Altogether, said Derek Chollet, a former United States assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, “There will be a quite robust display of military power in Europe and allied resolve, and hopefully Moscow will see it for what it is, an alliance improving its capabilities.”
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Talk of “strategic partnership” is gone; instead, there are calls to abandon the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, which spoke of shared values and a commitment to peace. There is less emphasis on finding “common ground” with Russia than on setting clear limits.
The intention in Warsaw is to move from “reassurance” of eastern NATO allies to “deterrence” of Russia. That means more troops and equipment, longer deployments, bigger exercises and a “persistent” presence of NATO and American troops in countries like Poland and the Baltics.
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How will Russia react? President Vladimir V. Putin views NATO as encircling Russia to limit its influence. Moscow argues that the only possible target of NATO’s missile defenses is Russia, now that Iran has agreed to limit its nuclear program.