Russian General Threatens ‘Pre-emptive’ Attacks on Missile-Defense Sites

A senior Russian general threatened on Wednesday pre-emptive attacks on missile defense sites in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe in the event of a crisis, underscoring the Kremlin’s opposition to the Obama administration’s plans and further undermining the “reset” in relations between the countries. While Russian officials have said previously that the antimissile sites could become targets in the event of war, the threat of a pre-emptive attack was new. The remarks from the general, Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the general staff, coming just days before Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin is set to assume the presidency for the second time, might also signal a shift to a more muscular foreign policy than that pursued by the outgoing president, Dmitri A. Medvedev. They were seen as particularly disappointing to the White House, since it had adjusted the missile defense to address the Russians’ security concerns, to a cascade of criticism from Republicans. The remarks also cast further doubt on the fate of the reset, which has been troubled for some time. In recent months, the Kremlin has resisted Washington’s entreaties to pressure the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and given a cold shoulder to the new American ambassador, Michael A. McFaul, with prominent commentators and politicians accusing him of trying to foment revolution in Russia. He in turn publicly complained about a TV station hacking into his phones, with the clear implication that it did so with the approval and perhaps assistance of the government. General Makarov was speaking at a conference in Moscow on antiballistic missile policy, hosted by the Russian Ministry of Defense. In his speech, one of many spelling out opposition to the plan, he went on to specify the type of Russian short-range missiles that might target locations in Eastern Europe. “Taking into account a missile defense system’s destabilizing nature, that is, the creation of an illusion that a disarming strike can be launched with impunity, a decision on pre-emptive employment of the attack weapons available could be made when the situation worsens,” General Makarov said, according to the Interfax news agency. Moscow authorities billed the conference as a forum for Russia to demonstrate how a United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization missile defense system directed at Iran or another rogue state would inevitably undermine Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent. General Makarov, the Russian chief of staff, also laid out potential Russian countermoves to missile defense, in a day of cold war-style arguments about how a nuclear battle between the United States and Russia might play out in light of the interceptor missiles planned for Eastern Europe. Those included placing medium-range missiles, called Iskanders, near the border with Poland. The United States says the proposed system would be useless against a full-scale attack from Russia’s huge arsenal. President George W. Bush proposed the system for Eastern Europe after withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s objections. President Obama first stalled the Eastern European program as part of the reset and then revived it in a new format, called the Phased Adaptive approach. Russian generals floated a number of objections to the revised plan. General Makarov, in his speech, said the United States was refusing to offer written guarantees that the interceptor missiles directed at Iran will not have the capacity to hit a Russian ICBM in flight as it streaks toward the United States with a nuclear bomb. American officials have said the proposed system will not have that capability. Ellen Tauscher, the American special envoy for Strategic Stability and Missile Defense, who is attending the conference, told journalists in a briefing Wednesday that the American delegation would hear out the Russian objections but was unlikely to make concessions. “The Russian concerns are concerns that we’re willing to listen to. “But at the same time they cannot be concerns that we will mitigate by offering any kind of limitations,” Ms. Tauscher said. “There’s nothing I can imagine that will stop us making these deployments on time.”