For an authentic strategy which will result in the ban of all
space-based weapons, including space-based weapons of mass-destruction,
please support the Space Preservation Treaty.  Text and supporting
research articles and expert media interviews at:

http://www.peaceinspace.org

Thank you.
Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS)
Vancouver, B.C.

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Biden Says U.S. Will Pursue Missile Plan Russia Opposes

MUNICH — The United States will pursue a missile defense plan that has angered the Kremlin, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
said Saturday, in a signal that the post-cold-war tensions that have
flared recently between Washington and Moscow could continue into the
new Obama administration.

But Mr. Biden did not say whether the administration would move
forward with a plan to place the system in Eastern Europe, which had
been the core of recent tensions. He also offered conciliatory words,
saying, "It is time to press the reset button, and to revisit the many
areas where we can and should be working together with Russia."

The highly anticipated speech, seen as the first major outline of
the new administration's relations with the world, came just days after
Kyrgyzstan's president announced a decision to close a United States
base there that is crucial to the war in Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama
has made his biggest foreign policy priority. The announcement was made
in Moscow, and many American officials concluded that the Russians had
pressured Kyrgyzstan as part of their campaign to reassert control over
former Soviet republics.

It was unclear on Saturday if Mr. Biden's statements on missile
defense were meant to suggest that the Obama administration had decided
to continue some of the Bush administration's tougher stands on Russia
or were part of a bargaining strategy. Russian cooperation is
considered important to American attempts to stop both Iran and North Korea from continuing with their nuclear programs.

In recent weeks, Russia's leaders have also sent mixed messages: offering kind words about President Obama,
then suggesting that the United States would need to do more to win
Russia's support — including addressing complaints about American plans
to expand NATO and ending plans for the missile defense system that the Bush administration had been pursuing.

President Bush had said that the system, which would include sites
in Eastern Europe, was needed to defend against countries like Iran,
but Russia has always seen it as a way of countering its own arsenal.

Mr. Biden also rejected the notion of a Russian sphere of influence
and said that Mr. Obama would continue to press NATO to seek "deeper
cooperation" with like-minded countries. "We will continue to develop
missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the
technology is proven and it is cost-effective," Mr. Biden said.

His wording virtually echoed the stance on missile defense that Mr.
Obama took during the presidential campaign, but was notable because
Mr. Biden did not announce a strategic review of the issue, which
administration officials had considered as a way to defuse tensions
between Washington and Moscow.

Although his language was tempered, Mr. Biden also said, "We will not agree with Russia on everything."

"For example, the United States will not recognize Abkhazia and
South Ossetia as independent states. We will not — will not — recognize
any nation having a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that
sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose
their own alliances."

Mr. Biden's speech came a day after Deputy Prime Minister Sergei B. Ivanov
told the same group that Moscow would not deploy its own missiles on
the Polish border if the United States reviewed its missile defense
plan.

But any chance for a rapprochement between the United States and
Russia at this conference all but evaporated, foreign policy experts
said, after the announcement on the Kyrgyz base. Mr. Obama plans to
send as many as 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next
two years; shaky overland supply routes through Pakistan would make it
difficult for the United States to adjust to the loss of the base, in
Manas, Kyrgyzstan.

Mr. Biden also talked about Iran, suggesting that the administration
was both willing to be more conciliatory than Mr. Bush's, but also was
willing to continue his tough policies if necessary. "We are willing to
talk to Iran," Mr. Biden said, in a departure from the Bush
administration. But Mr. Biden quickly tacked back to a refrain common
during the last years of the Bush presidency, and spoke of offering
Iran's leader a choice: "Continue down your current course and there
will be pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear program and
your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives."

In an interview at the conference, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of
the international affairs committee in the Russian Parliament, said he
welcomed Mr. Biden's comments about "a need to listen to partners," as
opposed to President Bush's approach "that everything is already
predecided, everything is clear and should be done the way the American
administration thinks about it," which would make it easier to reach
agreement on many issues "including the antimissile dispute."

Mr. Biden's speech was the highlight of a security conference that
attracted a host of global leaders and diplomats, most of whom seemed
primed to hear how the United States and its new leadership viewed the
world. They erupted into applause when Mr. Biden walked onto the stage.

But for all the talk of a new era in relations between the United
States and the world, old sores remained, and with no sign of healing
soon. "Let's be frank about it, there's more and more distrust between
the European Union and Russia," President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said.

It was at this security conference two years ago when the new
tension between the United States and Russia leapt to the fore when Vladimir V. Putin, then Russia's president, lashed out against the United States over its use of force. On Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel
of Germany struck a conciliatory note. "It is in our interest to
incorporate Russia in this new security architecture," she said.

On Friday, Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, said that Mr. Obama's decision to send George J. Mitchell,
his new envoy, to the Middle East to listen and not to dictate was "a
positive signal," but also said that, in terms of Iran, "the old carrot
and stick cliché"— the very strategy that Mr. Biden outlined— "must be
discarded." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/washington/08biden.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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