Posted on 09/19/2007 11:17:14 AM PDT by lizol
Russian radar in Azerbaijan is unacceptable, missile defense chief says
By Thom Shanker Published: September 18, 2007
WASHINGTON: American technical experts spent Tuesday inspecting a Russian radar station in Azerbaijan, but the director of the Pentagon's missile defense program emphatically stated that the Soviet-era early warning system was incapable of replacing an antimissile tracking radar proposed for the Czech Republic.
The director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, pressed the Kremlin to drop its objections to American proposals for 10 antimissile interceptors in Poland and for a radar in the Czech Republic. In a speech here, the general urged Moscow to link its radar in Azerbaijan to the American system in Central Europe to assist collective security.
The visit to Azerbaijan by a high-level delegation of missile experts was a response to a proposal from President Vladimir Putin of Russia that the United States drop plans for the new construction in Central Europe and to use instead the Russian radar in a system to defend against a future Iranian threat.
"We are taking the Russian proposal seriously with respect to cooperation," Obering said to members of the European Institute in Washington. "So we are going to learn as much as we can about this."
But he also said that "we do not anticipate, and cannot see, that what they are proposing can take the place for what we are proposing for Poland and the Czech Republic." Based on current assessments of the Russian system, it is "not capable of performing the functions" of the American radar proposed for the Czech Republic, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
In other words, the Russian radar is crap. Thanks, Pootie, but no thanks.
Really, here’s the deal, strategically: proposing missile defense silos in the Czech Republublic (and elsewhere) signals to Russia that we’re not happy with their relationship with Iran. The whole premise of the missile defense system is to guard against Iranian missile attack, which wouldn’t be plausible in the first place were it not for Russian technical assistance to Iran. They reap what they sow.
No, not necessarily crap, it's just a moderate bandwidth tracking radar. Doesn't have the bandwidth, waveforms or processing (and perhaps other *classified* attributes) to do target discrimination.
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