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Russia not to spend more on defence since US exit from
ABM - defence minister
Interfax
Brussels, 18 December: Moscow is not going to invest considerable additional funds in the defence industry in response to the USA's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty of 1972, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov has said.
"In the given situation, noone is planning to waste lots of money on an arms race," Ivanov told reporters in Brussels today.
According to Ivanov, "often such expenditure is senseless, while the national missile defence system (which the USA plans to develop - Interfax note) is a myth."
Replying to questions from Interfax, Ivanov said that last year Moscow had worked out a set of measures in response to the possible withdrawal of the USA from the ABM Treaty.
"The response measures were ready earlier. We have a plan for the construction of the armed forces, which includes determining the development of the Strategic Missile Troops. This plan was adopted by the Security Council in 2000," Ivanov noted.
He also stressed that "with any kind of planning, any self-respecting military organization always proceeds from various scenarios for the development of events, most often from the worst ones. And we foresaw the possibility of the USA withdrawing from the ABM Treaty.
Noting that the USA's unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty does not threaten Russia's security, Ivanov expressed concern about a possible negative response to it from a number of states. "Countries could emerge that will begin to develop their own nuclear and missile programmes in response to the USA's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. And they could declare: if the USA does not fulfil such major agreements, then we have no obligation to anyone either," Ivanov said.
According to Ivanov, "this does not concern China so much as Pakistan and India, Iran and Israel." "A domino effect could be triggered, and there is a certain risk of this," Ivanov said.
He said that, even if events develop in this way, Russia will be able to fully ensure national security. "Not a single country is capable of creating from scratch the nuclear potential that Russia and the USA have in five to fifteen years," he stressed.
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