"Certainly this is the antithesis of the kinds of arms building that you have seen in the past," said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman.

"It is a small and limited system ... and its nature poses absolutely no threat to Russia's strategic interests or Russia's strategic forces," Casey argued.

Earlier, in a speech setting out the long-term priorities of his hand-picked successor ahead of next month's presidential polls, Putin heralded a wealthy Russia able to compete in a new "arms race."

"There is a new turn in the arms race.... Russia will always respond to this new challenge," Putin said, promising "new weapons that are qualitatively the same or better than those of other countries."

Putin suggested that while Russia gave up bases in Cuba and Vietnam it was now facing new US presence on its borders, from bases to the planned missile shield.

Casey added: "I think we have been through a very fortunate period between the US and Russia in which both sides have drastically lowered their arsenals below the level that they were in the Cold War.

"We certainly continue to work well with the Russian government on these kinds of issues as well as on trying to prevent things like proliferation in places like North Korea and Iran. So I am not sure what" he is referring to, Casey added.

earlier related report
Russia did not want to revive arms race: Kremlin spokesman
Russia did not want a revived arms race with the United States but has been forced to start a new weapons programme in response to Washington's planned missile shield in Europe, a Kremlin spokesman told AFP Saturday.

"Russia had no intention of getting into an arms race. It is just a necessary response, to defend and protect our interests," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when asked to explain Moscow's plans on the sidelines of an annual security forum in Munich.

Peskov insisted that Moscow was not seeking a confrontation with Washington.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday sparked concerns in the West with a speech in which he heralded a wealthy Russia able to compete in a new "arms race."

"There is a new turn in the arms race... Russia will always respond to this new challenge," he said, promising "new weapons that are qualitatively the same or better than those of other countries".

According to a Kremlin official, Russia's new weapons programme "is not an end in itself".

"We are obliged to respond to the US project with these arms. But the only response from the Americans is: 'Russia's rhetoric is unacceptable'," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov was due to meet with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates in Munich Saturday, and give a speech Sunday, amid a rising war of words between Moscow and Washington on the missile issue.

The United States is currently negotiating with Warsaw and Prague on the possible installation of 10 interceptor missile sites in Poland by 2012 and associated radar stations in the Czech Republic.

Elements of Washington's global anti-missile defence system are already in place or being planned in the United States itself, Britain and Japan.

The United States says the shield is needed to ward off potential attacks by what it calls "rogue states", notably Iran.

But Russia strongly opposes the plans and considers them a grave threat to its national security.

Washington has dismissed such suggestions.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Friday that the missile shield programme was "the antithesis of the kinds of arms building that you have seen in the past".

Putin on Friday said that while Russia gave up bases in Cuba and Vietnam at the end of the Cold War, it was now facing a new US presence on its borders.

Moscow has also accused Washington of wanting to use the anti-missile bases to snoop on Russia's nuclear arsenal, and has threatened to train its missiles on Poland and the Czech Republic.

From the Kremlin's perspective, the US plans add further insult to the injury of NATO's 1999 and 2004 expansions into Moscow's communist-era European stamping ground.

In a move that foreshadowed Moscow's new get-tough stance, Putin had already announced the resumption of long-range bomber flights in international air space last summer.

Such flights were standard during the Cold War but were abandoned in 1992 amid financial difficulties after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Warsaw has been seeking to calm Russian concerns, with both Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski visiting Moscow for wide-ranging talks that have included the missile issue.

"More needs to be done to reassure Russia that the missile defence project does not threaten her," Sikorski said Saturday in a speech to the Munich conference.

"The decision on the base will be between the United States and Poland," he said, but reiterated that Warsaw was "ready to consider a mix of monitoring and inspection that would reassure everyone that the proposed facility should be of concern only to the bad guys".

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