As we have repeatedly documented in this column over the past year, the immediate Russian response is likely to be the deployment of a much larger number of Iskander short-range, solid fuel, quasi-ballistic missiles in the Russian and former Soviet enclave of Kaliningrad on Poland's northeast border.

The Poles knew when they announced their historic agreement with Washington Thursday to allow the BMD base to be built that this would likely be the Kremlin's reaction. That's why the agreement will include a U.S. commitment to deploy at least one and probably more batteries of Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptors on Polish territory.

The 10 GBIs will be deployed to shoot down high and fast-flying intercontinental ballistic missiles that Iran or some other Middle Eastern "rogue state" might launch against the cities of Western Europe or the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The Patriots are designed to shoot down much more numerous, but somewhat slower and far lower-flying short-range ballistic missiles such as the Iskander.

The GBIs would be the best and possibly only chance to prevent New York, Washington, Boston or Philadelphia from being incinerated by a long-range Iranian ICBM fired on a great circle route across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, if either Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his successors got their hands on those kinds of weapons and were reckless enough to use them.

Russia, however, has persisted in interpreting the deployment of the GBIs in Poland or elsewhere in Central Europe as evidence of a U.S. intention to neutralize its own mighty Strategic Missile Forces. However, only 10 expensive and difficult-to-build GBIs could pose no conceivable threat to the offensive power of the SMF with their 4,700 nuclear warheads.

That is especially the case as Russia's strategic nuclear delivery systems are not just mobile and land-based in the Russian Federation but are also carried on nuclear submarines and long-range bombers such as the supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 White Swan -- NATO designation Blackjack.

Poland's agreement to host the GBI base -- which is to be built by Boeing -- and the anticipated but still fierce Russian reaction therefore look likely to further heighten the tensions caused by the mini-war in the former Soviet republic of Georgia earlier this month when Russian ground forces easily smashed the ground forces of the small state of 4.4 million people and ejected Georgian troops from the Russian-backed enclave of South Ossetia.

For the first time in the nearly 21 years since U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in Washington in December 1987, the United States and Russia look likely to embark on a new ballistic missile and anti-ballistic missile arms race in Europe. The balance of power is making a comeback.

Related Links
Learn about missile defense at SpaceWar.com
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com
All about missiles at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com

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