The Pentagon has been engaged in recent discussions involving the potential for deploying missile units to southeast Asia, and specifically Japan, as a contingency in the scenario that China moves militarily against Taiwan. Japan's Kyodo News reported Sunday that this would involve the US Marine Corps' multiple-launch High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has responded to these reports, outlining Monday that Moscow has not ruled out sending medium- and shorter-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region in order to mirror the United States. 

HIMARS system, US Army/Wiki Commons

It's also the case that earlier this year Washington deployed a new intermediate-range land-based missile system to the Philippines. The system, called Typhon, is able to fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles - and has gotten both Russia's and China's attention.

Such a Russian deployment would be in retaliation, and would likely have the blessing of Beijing in such an escalation scenario. "Of course, this is one of the options that has also been repeatedly mentioned," Ryabkov explained. 

"The appearance of such US systems in any region of the world will determine our next steps, including in the field of organizing a military and military-technical response."

Ryabkov then stressed in the remarks to reporters that all of this depends entirely on the US policy. He urged against the expansion of missile systems to the Pacific region.

"[Russian] President [Vladimir Putin] said what he said. The issue of placement is exhaustively reflected in his statement," he said.

"As before, what is happening depends entirely on the choice that our opponents will make at this extremely alarming, very dangerous moment, and on the line that they will pursue," the deputy foreign minister added.

Ryabkov further noted that at the moment there are no restrictions on the deployment of Russia's new Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile, which have been touted as hypersonic and capable of reaching over Mach 10, under existing international obligations.

Source: www.middlebury.com, CIA 2003

Moscow has also long warned that the US pullout of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) was a major mistake, and will lead to bigger proliferation of dangerous and provocative missile systems globally among nuclear-armed powers.