WASHINGTON: Long-range US missiles are to be deployed periodically in Germany from 2026 for the first time since the Cold War, in a decision announced at Nato's 75th anniversary summit.
The Tomahawk cruise, SM-6 and hypersonic missiles have a significantly longer range than existing missiles, the US and Germany said in a joint statement.
Such missiles would have been banned under a 1988 treaty between the US and former Soviet Union, but the pact fell apart five years ago.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow would react with a "military response to the new threat".
"This is just a link in the chain of a course of escalation," he argued, accusing Nato and the US of trying to intimidate Russia.
The joint US-German statement made clear the "episodic" deployment of the missiles was initially seen as temporary but would later become permanent, as part of a US commitment to Nato and Europe's "integrated deterrence".
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hailed a decision from the United States to periodically station long-range missiles in Germany as a step to increase deterrence against Russia.
Washington's move marks a return of US cruise missiles to Germany after a 20-year absence, and has sparked criticism even among members of Scholz's Social Democrats.
Defending the decision, Scholz told reporters at a Nato summit in Washington it is "something of deterrence and it's securing peace, and it is a necessary and important decision at the right time."
The German army does not have long-range missiles that launch from the ground, only cruise missiles that can be fired by aircraft.
But the announcement sparked an outcry in Germany, where the deployment of US missiles brings back painful memories of the Cold War.
Ralf Stegner, an MP for Scholz's Social Democrats, told the Funke media group the missile decision could signal the start of a new "arms race."
"This will not make the world safer. On the contrary, we are entering a spiral in which the world is becoming increasingly dangerous," warned Stegner.
Sahra Wagenknecht, a prominent far-left figure in Germany, told the Spiegel weekly that US missile deployment "increases the danger that Germany itself will become a theatre of war."
The 1980s deployment of US Pershing ballistic missiles in West Germany at the height of the Cold War prompted widespread demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands coming out in pacifist protest.
US missiles continued to be stationed through the reunification of Germany and into the 1990s.
But following the end of the Cold War, the United States significantly reduced the numbers of missiles stationed in Europe as the threat from Moscow receded.
But Nato countries — spearheaded by the United States — are rushing to bolster their defences on the continent in the wake of Russia's 2022 war of neighbouring Ukraine.
The Kremlin on Thursday struck back, saying it was planning "response measures" to contain the "very serious threat" from Nato. — AFP
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