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11Jan16
Air Force General Says Russia Missile Defense 'Very Serious'
The commander of United States Air Force operations in Europe and Africa expressed "very serious" concern Monday over what he described as big buildups of complex Russian missile defenses that increasingly threaten NATO military access to air space in parts of Europe, including one-third of the skies in Poland.
He also said Russia had started to engage in similar missile buildups in the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed nearly two years ago from Ukraine, and in war-ravaged Syria, where Russian military forces have been assisting the government by bombing its insurgent foes for more than three months.
The commander, Gen. Frank Gorenc, whose responsibilities include Air Force operations covering 104 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and parts of the Middle East, said the Russian strategy, known as anti-access/area denial, or A2/AD in military shorthand, was among the most worrisome trends he had seen.
Some of the heaviest concentrations of A2/AD deployments, General Gorenc said in an interview with The New York Times editorial board, are in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast. The surface-to-air missile systems there, he said, are "layered in a way that makes access to that area difficult," with a spillover effect in parts of Poland and the Baltics, should NATO jets have reason to operate there.
"It is very serious," the general said. "Obviously, we continue to monitor it. They have every right to lay that stuff out. But the proliferation and the density of that kind of A2/AD environment is something that we're going to have to take into account."
General Gorenc, who is based at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and has held numerous senior Air Force positions, has expressed concerns before about the Russian strategy, largely in the military press. In an interview last month with Stars and Stripes, General Gorenc said the strategy "is clearly a method of making it very, very difficult to gain access and operate in certain areas."
While the Air Force operations in Iraq and Syria are not in his area of command, General Gorenc said he had been watching Russia's military expansion in Syria with keen interest because the Russians want Western powers to see the destructive power of its latest weaponry.
"They're using cruise missiles, they're using bombers," he said. "It's clear that they're desiring to show what ability they have to affect not just regional events but worldwide events."
The Russians have spent large sums to expand their military arsenal since the Georgia conflict in 2008, the general said. "What we're witnessing is the fruits of that effort," he said. "They've increased capacity, they've increased capability, and, by the way, have demonstrated a willingness to use it."
[Source: By Rick Gladstone, The New York Times, 11Jan16]
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 | This document has been published on 13Dec16 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |