Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu took the opportunity of a congratulatory phone call to new U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to bring up the issue of restarting missile defense talks.
Shoygu “expressed his desire to reconvene missile defense discussions with the U.S. at the deputy minister level,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little recently in a statement.
Hagel agreed and reiterated the discussions are an important part of U.S.-Russian relations, Little said.
Hagel assured Shoygu the discussions would continue–though no firm schedule was mentioned–and be carried forward by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Jim Miller, Little said.
Russian talks with NATO broke off over the U.S. Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) to missile defense that would add Eastern Europe to the ballistic missile defense umbrella covering NATO nations. At the time, NATO would not provide legal guarantees the systems would not target Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent.
With Miller at the Pentagon March 15, Hagel announced a restructuring of the SM-3 IIB program planned for deployment as part of the PAA, to add to the protection of the United States already provided by ground-based interceptors against missile threats from the Middle East. This was one of several missile defense changes to protect against North Korea and the Middle East.
Shifting resources will add protection against missiles from Iran sooner, while providing additional protection against the North Korean threat, Hagel said at the time.
“Let me emphasize the strong and continued commitment of the United States to NATO missile defense,” he said. “That commitment remains ironclad.”
The PAA missile deployments include sites in Poland and Romania and will be able to provide coverage of all European NATO territory as planned by 2018.
Shoygu was appointed Russian defense chief in November after President Putin fired the previous minister amid a fraud scandal. Hagel was sworn in as Defense Secretary at the end of February.