The Russians already continue to maintain their forces on high rates of alert -- something that the United States has apparently been encouraging to reduce Russian fears about U.S. missile defenses. The follow-on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) agreement contained provisions for eliminating missiles with multiple warheads (which are usually kept on higher rates of alert), but the administration of President George W. Bush abandoned that restriction in the Moscow Treaty and Russia may resort to multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) to maintain a larger nuclear force. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the prospects of space weapons "particularly alarming," while the commander of Russian Space Forces implied that Russia would respond to U.S. deployments of space weapons.

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Lewis, Jeffrey. What if Space Were Weaponized? Possible Consequences for Crisis Scenarios. Washington, D.C.: Center for Defense Information, July 2004. [ 16 quotes ] [ page 22 ]