Russia threatened on Thursday to pull out of a landmark nuclear arms control treaty unless the US backed away from plans to install its missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.
Yury Baluyevsky, the Russian army chief of staff, said Moscow might unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, which forced the US and the [...]

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Compared to his angry rhetoric about the U.S. in that same speech, president Putin’s words about Iran apparently meant that, in his view, it presents much less danger to the world than the America. He made it clear that he did not trust U.S. claims that it does not build strategic offensive weapons. He spoke [...]

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Feb 15, 2007 — CANBERRA (Reuters) - The United States is to build a new military satellite communications base in Australia, the government said on Thursday, after three years of secret negotiations between the two allies.
The new base will relay signals and intelligence to U.S. forces in the Middle East and Asia from Geraldton, 400 [...]

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Iran today poses a five-pronged threat, warned the man who first blew the whistle on the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. Iran is “a very, very serious threat to the free world,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, who outlines the dangers posed by the Islamic republic, as he sees them, in his new book, “The Iran Threat: President [...]

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At 22:26 GMT, 11 January 2007, China slammed a kill vehicle into one of its dead metrological satellites, proving to the world that they were part of the small but unfortunately growing club of countries that can accomplish the difficult task of hypervelocity interceptions in space. As a signal to the world, this test [...]

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Imagine that Iran is a hardboiled egg with a thin shell. We should tap it lightly wherever we can - until tiny fissures join and shatter the shell.
We can begin to do this by pushing international accords and doggedly ratcheting up the weak United Nations sanctions. Even if they don’t do much to Iran in [...]

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China’s successful test of a ballistic anti-satellite missile last month by blowing up one of its own weather satellites without prior warning, and Iran’s recent announcement that it has developed a similar long-range ballistic missile, are two strong indications that the time has come for decision-makers in the West to sit up and pay attention [...]

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Concern about Russia appears to be growing in Sweden, leading to increased behind-the-scenes debate on the country’s security policy line.
On Wednesday, the head of the Analysis Centre of the Swedish Defence Forces said that a new assessment of the state of Russia is leading to fine-tuning of the focus toward domestic and regional defence.
Link [...]

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Moscow will assist in Saudi development of a civilian nuclear program and build six “research satellites” for the oil kingdom. DEBKAfile’s Gulf intelligence sources report this was agreed in the talks held in Riyadh earlier this week by visiting Russian president Vladimir Putin and King Abdullah. Israeli military sources report that Moscow in fact undertook [...]

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INDIA will test-fire a new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East within the next few months, a news report quoting a top defense scientist said.
A first test of the Agni III missile failed in July last year, but scientists have fixed a fault in its heat shield [...]

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MOSCOW — A top Russian general said Thursday that Moscow may unilaterally opt out of a Soviet-era arms reduction treaty with the United States, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia could pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Link to this article.

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Quoting “Western defense sources,” the report said “Iran is pursuing a longer-range strike capability for its air assets to support the delivery of more powerful strategic weapon systems,” adding that Tehran was “investing considerable resources” in aerial refueling capabilities. The training involved Iran Air Force’s (IRIAF’s) Sukhoi Su-24MK strike aircraft, Jane’s Weekly said.
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Back to the Future?
Putin’s speech has a number of domestic and international “drivers,” which add up to a picture of Russia craving strategic parity with the United States and defining its national identity in opposition to the West.
While Russians enthusiastically embraced private business, designer brands, and Costa-del-Sol Spanish vacations, they were slow to internalize pluralistic [...]

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The defense establishment is considering deploying new Arrow 2 missile batteries, in addition to the two currently in place, at sites throughout the country, including in the South, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
On Sunday night, the IAF successfully tested the Arrow 2 system against a missile impersonating an Iranian Shihab-3 carrying a nuclear warhead.
The Post [...]

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Negotiators in Peking as well as Washington hailed it as a breakthrough: North Korea will phase out its nuclear program. But to many critics — including George W. Bush’s own political allies — the deal looks like a concession.
A day after the initial optimism surrounding the agreement with North Korea which will see the country [...]

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