While the recently concluded G-8 summit revolved around the important issue of climate change, missile defence was a hotly discussed issue on the sidelines, although it was not a part of the official G-8 agenda. It all started a few days before the commencement of the summit when Vladimir Putin, the Russian President took a very hawkish position on the US proposal to establish a "missile defence shield" at Poland and the Czech Republic to guard Europe from any missile attack form "states of concern" such as North Korea and Iran. The US has proposed to place anti-missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.

However, it appears that before raising this issue at the international level, Putin first wanted to give a message to the Bush administration. He did so by successfully test firing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), the RS-24 with an 8000km range on 29 May 2007. This missile is capable of carrying six nuclear warheads maneuverable enough in final stages of flight to evade any missile defence system.

RS-24 missiles are being inducted to replace existing RS-18 and RS-20 missiles which are the backbone of the Russian nuclear forces and will form a mainland component of Russia's strategic nuclear triad. Along with this missile Russia successfully tested a cruise missile, the Iskander-M the very next day. This missile with Circular Error Probability (CEP) of 2 meters and with a range that can be increased to 1000km with minor modifications is capable of hitting missile interceptors that the US plans to deploy in East Europe and regions along the Russian border.

With this test, Russia showed to the US and Europe that it will have the necessary hardware in place to defeat any future missile defence system. Putin's resistance to the missile shield is mainly on two counts. First, he knows that any interception of the missile targeted towards Europe will take place over the Russian airspace, which brings the Russian population and property in danger of debris. Second, he feels that the US claims of providing security cover to Europe from a possible Iranian attack are fallacious. This is because Iran is unlikely to manufacture a missile capable of reaching Europe and so more than the perceived Iranian threat, the US wants to put this system in place to deter Russian nuclear forces. Putin also believes that the US wants to thwart the developing relationship between Europe and Russia and Bush is thus intentionally trying to create mistrust them by bringing in the issue of missile defence system.

Just before the start of the G-8 summit, Putin made highly provocative statements stating that he was totally in disagreement with the US missile defence proposal and if the US was not ready to review its plan then he would aim Russian missiles at Europe. These hawkish statements by Putin even gave rise to debates on whether such attitudes meant a return of the Cold War.

Interestingly, during the summit, Putin made an entirely different proposal to the US. He changed his stance from saying that missile defence system was a threat to Russia to offering to formulate a joint plan with the US for the development of a missile defence shield. He proposed that the US should use radar facilities at Azerbaijan and interceptors could be fired from the US ships at sea. With this system the debris would fall in the sea while the radar at Azerbaijan would cover the whole of entire Europe, which was actually not possible with the installation of the radar in the Czech Republic.

However, this proposal has some lacunas. First, the radar at Azerbaijan does not belong to Russia and is on lease to them. Second, the radar is an early-warning system and not a X-band radar used to guide anti-missile interceptors which is what the US wants to build in the Czech Republic. Naturally, the US is very cautious about this suggestion but both countries have now agreed to form a working group of military and diplomatic experts to examine the issue.

Following the G-8 summit, few Russian leaders have made further provocative statements on the issue. Still, the events of the last three weeks show that Putin somewhat lacked in statesmanship. He initially raised the ante by taking a very hawkish position but finally went back on his own position by offering to join the missile defence shield. It is a known fact that the Russians are extremely unhappy about the US abandonment of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001. Also, they have had differences of opinion about the conflict in Kosovo and on the Iranian nuclear impasse. Russia is also not impressed by the US preaching to it the virtues of democracy. Against this backdrop, it appears that Putin could have handled this issue more carefully and diplomatically from the beginning.