The Russian military warns that American ABMs in Europe could trigger another spiral of the costly arms race, which would probably also involve countries other than the United States and Russia  and prompt some of them to backtrack from their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.     

Appearing before the media in Moscow Monday, Chief of Staff General Nikolai Makarov also said such deployments would destroy mutual confidence  and force Russia to consider a strategic response to them.     

On insistence by Russia, the new Russian-American arms reduction deal signed at the Prague summit last Thursday  contains provisions that explicitly link ABMs to strategic arsenals. The new START treaty itself limits the nuclear warheads to 1,550, and the strategic delivery vehicles, to 700 on each side.