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U.S. Missile Defense No Threat to Russia for a Decade, Says Russian Negotiator
Interfax

MOSCOW, Jan 14, 2002 --
Russia will keep its nuclear triad - the ground, naval and air components - despite its plans to radically cut strategic offensive armaments to 1,500 nuclear warheads.

"The triad is the most optimal structure of the strategic nuclear forces and we are not planning to give it up," First Deputy Chief of the General Staff Col-Gen Yuriy Baluyevskiy told Interfax on Monday [14 January].

He said, however, that priority will be given to the naval component of the triad. "In all our long-term plans of military advancement the second, the naval, component is the priority," he said.

"In the next five to seven or maybe 10 years the state of the ground component of the strategic nuclear forces will fully satisfy us," Baluyevskiy said.

He said that the U.S. decision to build a missile defense system "will not pose a military threat to us in the next decade".

"A defense system is always less expensive than an offensive one," he said, adding that Russia will not resort to "asymmetric actions" in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty. "It would be possible to take the road of increasing the number of deployed missiles, and nuclear warheads on them, but this is a road to nowhere, a new stage in the arms race. Russia does not need this road and will not take it," the official said.