Speaking at the NATO-Russia defense ministers' meeting in Brussels on June 8, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the solution to the European missile defense shield issue depends not on NATO, but on the United States. He also warned that Russia would develop its own offensive nuclear force if NATO failed to reach an agreement with Russia on a joint missile shield. Serdyukov's comments hinted at Russia's strategy of trying to get Western European countries to cooperate with Moscow while threatening the Central Europeans, who still see Russia as antagonistic. The Central Europeans are meanwhile making several military and diplomatic countermoves of their own and will, in the next few years, develop a number of security alternatives based on regional alliances that in many ways begin to replace NATO as the main security alliance in the region.
