By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
Russia is warning it will have a “military response to the new threat” following the announcement that the US will periodically deploy long-range missiles in Germany starting in 2026.
Those types of weapons haven’t been in western Europe since the Cold War.
The US and Germany issued a joint statement on the deployment at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington. The weapons involved include the Tomahawk cruise, SM-6 and hypersonic missiles, all equipped with non-nuclear warheads. According to the statement, all three have “significantly longer range” than those currently in place in Europe.
Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, says the deployment will encourage Germany and other NATO allies to develop and buy their own long-range missiles. “We are talking here about an increasingly serious gap in capability in Europe,” Pistorius said.
The Kremlin’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Rybakov, told a Russian news agency, “Without nerves, without emotion, we will develop a military response, first of all, to this new game.”
The Tomahawk is a cruise missile that is primarily used by the Navy, but can also be launched from the ground and from the air. It was developed by General Dynamics in the 1970s and is now built by Raytheon.
The SM-6, also built by Raytheon, was designed as a surface-to-air missile, but can also be used as an anti-ship, air-to-air and anti-ballistic missiles.
As for hypersonic weapons, the US is currently in the development stage, and it’s unclear if any will be ready to be deployed two years from now.
These weapons would have been banned by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It removed both countries’ intermediate range weapons from Europe, such as the US Pershing II and the Soviet SS-20, and prohibited both nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers from being deployed on the continent.
The US pulled out of the treaty in 2019. Five years before, the US accused Moscow of breaking it by developing a new cruise missile. Russia denied that the weapon violated the agreement.
In Washington, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised the new arrangement between his country and the US.
“We have long been grappling with the question of how we can ensure a deterrent that secures our own alliance territory, but also Germany, with conventional weapons,” he said. “This decision has been a long time in the making and comes as no real surprise to anyone involved in security and peace policy.”
Germany’s opposition far-right party, the AfD, says deploying US missiles will make the country “a target.” Other critics say it could lead to an arms race with Russia.
Less than two weeks ago, Russian leader Vladimir Putin called for resuming production of intermediate-range missiles. Putin pointed out that the US had brought the weapons to Denmark for exercises and had also temporarily deployed them in the Philippines.
