Missile Defense Push to Include Aid to Russia

Moving to soften Moscow’s opposition to the missile defense system that is central to its military strategy, the Bush administration will offer Russia military aid and participation in antimissile exercises, administration officials said Monday.

The plan also may include the sale of Russian weapons to the United States. At the center of the purchase would be Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles, a weapon for which American military planners have special respect.

An administration official said U.S. officials have talked to “our friends and allies--and the Russians--about a broad range of areas of potential cooperation with regard to missile defense.”

These include a system to provide early warning of missile attacks and the potential U.S. purchase of Russian-made components of a missile defense system.

“The Russians have invested heavily for years in advanced air defense and missile technology that may be of help to us in our deployment” of missile defenses, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. President Bush was in Arizona for a Memorial Day program on his way to Los Angeles.

In Moscow, Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov said the Bush administration had not yet made any such offer. And even if it did, he said, “it would not solve the issues related to [the] missile defense problem.”

He pointed out that the S-300s were designed for antiaircraft use, not for missile defense.

And although Ivanov made clear that Russia has not backed off its opposition to Bush’s missile defense plan, he did say that if the new offer was made, Russia would consider it.

“We are ready for debates, and we have been having such for years,” he said. “We had debates with the Clinton administration, and we are ready to have them with the Bush administration.”

The defense system would necessitate the abrogation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, a linchpin of the nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Russia has adamantly objected to ripping up the treaty.

Ivanov said in Moscow: “It is important for everyone to understand that the loss of the legal validity of the ABM treaty would entail absolutely unpredictable consequences, because 32 international agreements on arms limitations and nonproliferation are linked to the ABM treaty.

“You cannot take away a brick and expect the wall to stand as it was,” he said. “It is practically impossible to assess the consequences.”

Bush has presented the missile defense plan as primarily a system that would protect the United States--and other nations, if they chose to take part--from attack by such “rogue” nations as Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

The proposed offer was first disclosed by administration officials to the New York Times in what appeared to be an effort to signal Bush’s intentions without making a formal announcement. Bush is likely to present the plan to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin when they meet in Slovenia next month.

Officials said the Russians were given an early look at the missile defense plan several weeks ago when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Stephen Hadley, Bush’s deputy national security advisor, went on a tour intended to explain the initiative to Western European allies as well as likely critics.

At the center of the plan would be joint exercises in which teams would identify and destroy attacking warheads. Other key elements would be funds to help strengthen Russia’s radar system, and shared early warning data.

The new potential White House offer suggests a sharp change in the administration’s approach to the missile defense effort.

In the first weeks of the Bush administration, officials insisted that if Russia balked at cooperating, they would set aside the ABM treaty on their own and forge ahead with plans to build an antimissile shield.

Dumping the treaty has been an article of faith with many senior administration officials in the Pentagon and the National Security Council staff. They have argued for years that the treaty was not in U.S. interests.

The prospective offer signals that the administration is eager to win Russian agreement to jettison the treaty. Such a posture would appease European allies, which want the Russian views heeded, and placate missile defense critics in Congress.

Those congressional critics won important new leverage last week as Democrats were poised to retake control of the Senate with Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords’ abandonment of the Republican Party.

Democratic control will make Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a skeptic on missile defense, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Since Jeffords announced his switch, Levin has expressed his reservations about the idea of dumping arms control agreements for as-yet-unproven missile defense technologies.

Democratic control of the Senate also will probably put Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) in the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. While Biden says he supports the idea of a limited antimissile shield, he has also expressed reservations.

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Gerstenzang reported from Mesa and Daniszewski from Moscow. Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.