http://www.alternet.org/story/48274/(This is heavily jaded toward Russia but its quite interesting.)
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Putin had tolerated the Bush administration's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, noting that while it wasn't a sound decision, it was one which in his mind posed no direct threat to Russia. But his temerity in the face of American unilateralism and NATO expansion had left him in a precarious position in Moscow. The new U.S. initiative represents everything the Russians had feared: the United States marching inexorably toward the complete nullification of Russia as a world power. This American-centric approach was unacceptable to the inner circles of Russian leadership. Awash in a growing sea of oil revenue, the Russians had for some time been quietly rebuilding their once vast military industrial infrastructure. A few years ago the Russians successfully tested a new road-mobile ICBM, the SS-27 M "Topol," which incorporated performance features designed to defeat the U.S. missile defense system's operational parameters. Now, with the United States poised to construct a missile defense umbrella over an expanded NATO membership that laps at the very borders of Mother Russia, Putin has had enough.
Earlier this month, in a speech before the Munich Security Conference, Putin condemned America's drive toward the creation of what he termed a "uni-polar world." In such a world, Putin argued, the United States sought the creation of "one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master." He went on to note that "... the United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres -- economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," and that this represented a "disaster." Most observers brushed off Putin's strong remarks as being unconstructive, with few fearing anything more than strong language coming from the Russians. But this time the Russian reaction appears to go well beyond simple rhetoric. Invoking the same rational employed by the United States when it withdrew from the ABM Treaty, the Russian defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, recently called the INF Treaty a "relic of the Cold War," while the chief of the Russian general staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, stated that it would be in Russian interests to withdraw from the INF Treaty altogether.
Any Russian withdrawal from the INF Treaty would be a disaster for Europe, NATO, global security and, something members of Congress and the American public should note, the United States. From its very inception, missile defense has been played up by American unilateralists as the "cure all" for genuine security, being cited again and again as the proper response to the ballistic missile threats of Russia, China, Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The reality is much different. Missile Defense has always had a Maginot Line-like quality to it, the technologies encompassed always being decades old before they can be fielded. Since intercepting a missile is much more difficult than launching one, the technology implementation cycle for delivery systems is always tighter than for interception systems, meaning that a missile defense system will never be able to catch up to the threat, especially if the threat is derived from a power such as Russia. If Russia withdraws from the INF Treaty, the United States and NATO will soon be confronted by entirely new generations of advanced short- and intermediate-range missiles which will once again place the cities of Europe beneath an umbrella of potential nuclear holocaust.
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