NATO plan to deploy ABMs in Europe ‘just a waste of money’
NATO’s plan to deploy its European missile defense system is “just a waste of money” as the allegedly dangerous countries lack the capacity to strike the US, while Russia would easily bypass the system, US physicist Lawrence M. Krauss told RT.
With Russia and NATO failing to reach an agreement on NATO’s European missile defense program, a growing number of experts are questioning the rationale behind the deployment of the ABMs and radars. Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist from Arizona State University, believes the missile defense system is a futile waste of money because the so-called rogue states the system is meant to defend against do not have the capability to strike the US or its allies with ballistic missiles, while bigger countries, such as Russia, would simply bypass the system using decoys along with actual ballistic missiles if a war were to break out. “We cannot defend against ballistic missiles.” Krauss said. “It just doesn’t work. If you look at all the tests that have gone forward, the weapons systems have failed during most of them. And none of them have been tested against the kind of weapons a country like Russia would use if it ever wanted to use them because you’d send out decoys at the same time as missiles. Any sensible rich country would do that and we can’t distinguish between decoys and missiles. So from a strategic perspective, for missile defense, they’re just useless. There may be other political reasons to create such a defense but they don’t work as advertised.” Krauss believes one of the reasons why the US is creating the system may be to pander to a hawkish electorate in the run-up to the 2012 Presidential and Congressional elections. Meanwhile, Russia has announced plans to deploy a missile warning system in its exclave of Kaliningrad and to equip its troops with missiles that would be able to penetrate the ABMs. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refused to back down on these plans, arguing that Moscow’s demands for the US to sign a binding agreement not to target its system against Russia had been ignored.
