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WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) - Germany called on Friday for talks on creating a NATO missile defence shield for Europe, a day after the United States vowed to press ahead with its system without alliance approval. The head of the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency said on Thursday Washington wanted to secure the understanding of its 25 NATO members for its plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe, but was not seeking their green light. The United States' European allies are concerned the move will damage their ties with Moscow, and Germany has led calls for wider consultations on the...

Poland sought to reassure Russia on Oct. 5 a U.S. anti-missile system that could be sited on Polish soil would pose no threat to it; but Moscow warned any deployment could have implications for its defense planning. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on a visit to Poland, said he remained concerned about the proposal, part of the U.S multi-billion dollar Missile Defense Initiative (MDI), which would use rockets to shoot down ballistic missiles carrying nuclear, chemical or bacteriological warheads. Washington is seeking to put tracking systems or interceptor missiles in underground silos in Poland or the Czech Republic, both members...

Text of report by Polish news agency PAP Warsaw, 5 October: The Russian foreign affairs minister, Sergey Lavrov, expressed the hope today that the negotiations process over the deployment of parts of elements of the US antimissile defence in Poland and other states would be a "transparent" one. Asked by reporters whether the issue of deployment of the US antimissile shield in Poland was among the subjects raise in their talks, Lavrov said that it had been. "We raised the issue of the antimissile shield. We spoke about NATO ideas with regard to the setting up of such a system;...

Eastern Europe Shuns Missile Shield As the Pentagon scouts Poland and the Czech Republic for possible locations for its planned missile defense shield, locals are proving to be less than enthusiastic about the idea. With its planned new missile defense system, sometimes known as "Son of Star Wars," Washington wants to create a battery of defenses capable of protecting the United States and its allies from oncoming missiles -- nuclear or otherwise. A working version of the defense system does not yet exist and a number of tests have resulted in failure, but Pentagon officials are already scouring Eastern Europe...

THE United States is considering establishing a missile defence system in Europe designed to stop a ballistic threat from the Middle East, the Pentagon said last night.A spokesman said they had been in discussions with European allies, including Poland, for several years about putting ten anti-missile interceptors in place. The New York Times reported that the system was intended to thwart a potential attack from Iran and that the US wanted it in place by 2011. The Czech Republic is also reported to be among the nations under consideration for the system's location. According to unnamed Pentagon officials a recommendation...

The fallout from Paul Martin’s decision not to participate in the ballistic missile defense program has been massive. I’m not sure Paul Martin knows what hit him. The loony leftists aside, average Canadians are upset with the Liberal government and very, very concerned that this decision is going to directly impact them in the pocketbook, given that 80% of Canadian exports are sold to the U.S. market and that tourism here depends heavily on American visitors. Many here suspect that the decision yesterday of a Montana judge not to reopen the U.S. border to Canadian beef would have turned out...

Ottawa – Canadians shouldn't worry about their sovereignty because in many ways this country and the United States have never been further apart, says the next ambassador to Washington. Frank McKenna was grilled for 90 minutes by the Commons foreign affairs committee on Tuesday. And while the session was largely overshadowed by controversial comments on continental missile defence, the former New Brunswick premier had some interesting and candid insights on his new job. McKenna thinks the U.S. should back off on criticisms of Canadian marijuana decriminalization. He worries about the gulf between Canadian and American understanding of one another. And...

Prime Minister Paul Martin said Tuesday he does not believe the U.S. ballistic missile shield will succeed in shooting down incoming rockets, as he threw up new roadblocks to counter President George W. Bush's strong appeal for Canada to join his continental defence plan. Canada will not put any money into building the missile shield and it will not allow Washington to station rockets on Canadian soil as the price of participation in the multibillion-dollar program, Martin told Global National in a year-end interview. In another issue that could cause friction with Bush, Martin said Canada was prepared to accept...

China says the United States, Japan and Australia could upset the global strategic balance by trying to build an anti-missile shield. China's Ambassador to Australia, Fu Ying, told the Canberra Press Club that Beijing believes the creation of an anti-missile system will not stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "We also hope that cooperation among countries for this kind of scheme will not upset the global strategic balance and will also take into consideration the concerns of other countries and the interests of other countries," he said.

CANBERRA: A senior US official will visit Australia next week to brief the government on a proposed missile defense shield, the government said on Friday. J D Crouch II, assistant defense secretary for international security policy, will discuss the project with Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill and other senior officials early next week, Hill's spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity. Washington is pushing ahead with plans to develop a shield against ballistic missiles, arguing that "rogue states" could soon have missiles to threaten the United States. It wants allies such as Britain and Australia involved in the project, particularly for...

AUSTRALIA should join the US global missile shield to provide a protective umbrella for forces increasingly deployed to trouble spots in the Pacific and Asia, a navy report claims. The report, by the Royal Australian Navy Seapower Centre, said "the Government would be abrogating its responsibility to ADF soldiers, sailors and airmen if it espoused a new strategic role for them without providing tools to carry it out". Author, RAN Commander Tom Mueller, said Australia should fit three air warfare destroyers, due to be delivered in 2006, with an anti-ballistic missile capacity to provide cover for deployed forces. The ships...

Imagine that you area police officer in a tough neighborhood where the criminals are heavily armed. You go to a maker of bulletproof vests, who proudly claims that his latest product has passed five of its past eight tests. Somewhat anxious, you ask, "Did three of the bullets go through the vest?" The vest maker looks sheepish: "Well, we didn't actually fire bullets at it. We fired BBs. But don't worry, we're going to keep working on it. And, hey, it's better than nothing, right?" The faulty vest is roughly analogous to America's unproved system for shooting down nuclear-tipped missiles....

In his recent appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, CIA Director George Tenet was asked, "What is the likelihood that [the North Koreans] currently have a missile capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States?" He turned to the officials sitting with him, conferred with them briefly and replied, "I think the declassified answer is, yes, they can do that." In fact, he allowed that the North Koreans probably have one or two "plutonium-based devices" at their disposal. Of course, it comes as a surprise to no one that North Korea is pursuing a nuclear program. The...

Taken By Surprise The United States, Canada, and Anti-Missile Defence Kenneth H. W. Hilborn {Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario, Kenneth Hilborn's primary field of specialization is 20th Century international relations with an emphasis on the impact of ideologies. During the Cold War, he wrote extensively on international issues for newspapers and anti-Communist periodicals. He reported from Australia, Berlin, Cyprus, Nationalist China (Taiwan and Quemoy), southern Africa and Southeast Asia (including South Vietnam). For several years, his book reviews appeared from coast to coast in Canadian newspapers of the Thomson chain. The following essay has been...

Early this month, Major-General Amos Yaron, director-general of Israel's Defence Ministry, flew in secretly twice to meet his counterparts in New Delhi. Yaron's visits were in response to urgent Indian requests for a spy satellite and an anti-missile system. Yaron, says a recent issue of Jane's Foreign Report, had to turn down both requests. Jane's reported that India wanted to "buy or borrow" Israel's newly-launched Ofek-5 spy satellite. Yaron said Israel needed to keep it on an Iran-Syria-Iraq orbit, that it could not, even temporarily, be sent over Kashmir at the present time — as New Delhi wanted. Yaron also...

When authorizing the new Missile Defense Agency, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he wanted to field initial elements of the overall "layered” system in the 2004-2008 time frame. Pentagon officials now say they are optimistic about opening a prototype hit-to-kill ballistic missile defense site in Alaska by October 2004, according to the New York Times. "It is becoming increasingly clear and we are becoming increasingly confident that we will be able to make hit-to-kill work reliably enough to be effective,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, chief of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency. Pentagon officials said work would...