September 18, 2007 :: News
On September 18 a delegation of U.S. missile defense experts toured the Russian Gabala radar facility in Azerbaijan. A current U.S. plan to house ten Ground Based Interceptors in Poland and an X-band radar in the Czech Republic as part of a limited missile defense system has angered Russia, which believes it is intended to challenge its own nuclear deterrent and fears the proximity of the system to its border. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a counter-proposal in July that would allow the U.S. to share the use of its radar facility in Azerbaijan instead of building one in the Czech Republic. However, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, stated 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." Obering added, that based on current assessments of the Russian system, it is "not capable of performing the functions" of the radar proposed for the Czech Republic. The Russian radar in Azerbaijan has a broad view of the horizon and is useful for early warning, while the system proposed for the Czech Republic is designed to have a quite narrow view, but one that is very detailed and exact, as required for tracking and targeting individual missiles. The Russian system could be useful as a way to alert the rest of the missile-defense system in Europe to a missile attack but the Russians have maintained that the Gabala radar facility is intended to be an alternative to the U.S. plan and not a supplement.
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