MOSCOW. March 5 (Interfax-AVN) - Airspace and outer space may turn into a common area for an armed conflict by 2015, and will require a high level of aerospace defense, Russian Air Force Commander Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov told Interfax-AVN on Monday.
"Since practically all forms and methods of the military use of space and air offensive means are expected to assume an aerospace nature by 2015 - I mean airspace and outer space will represent a common sphere of an armed conflict - aerospace defense arrangements must be at their best," he said.
Analysis of the latest armed conflicts and local wars has shown that a reliable aerospace defense system will be crucial to the sustainability of state and military government systems, the viability of economies, the possibility of strategic Armed Forces deployments, as well as the sustainability and combat capabilities of nuclear and conventional forces, Mikhailov said.
The world's geopolitical transformation has radically changed the nature of threats facing Russia's security, the general said. Yesterday's overt threat of a large-scale, possibly nuclear, confrontation between the West and the East has been replaced by a system of multiple local threats in all geo-strategic avenues, the general said. There is an emerging trend toward a broader conflict space, which might spread to the area of Russia's vital national interests, he said.