NATO will discuss American plans for new missile defences today as Russia said it would refuse to destroy thousands of nuclear warheads if the system went ahead.

George W Bush is committed to pushing ahead with the national missile defence system to protect America from attack by rogue states such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea. But General Vladimir Yakovlev, head of Russia's strategic rocket forces, said that this would scupper treaties agreeing to the destruction of warheads.

The 1972 ABM treaty, which Washington wants to amend, governs the conditions under which America and the former Soviet Union can develop and deploy anti-ballistic missile systems. The current treaty would limit American deployment to its launch pad at Grand Forks, North Dakota, preventing the kind of nationwide protection envisaged under the new plans.

The ABM treaty led to the Start treaties. The current treaty, Start II, would halve American and Russian nuclear arsenals to 3,000 or 3,500 warheads each. President Putin has suggested that under Start III both sides should reduce their nuclear arsenals to 1,500 each.

But Gen Yakovlev said that Russia was not prepared to soften its approach to allow the national missile defence system to go ahead. Deploying it would galvanise Russians to create "new weapons" even deadlier than nuclear missiles.

He said: "You cannot stop the human mind. Unfortunately, men will always be driven to create new weapons. We expend our ingenuity inventing new systems and then have to work to find ways to eliminate them."

President Reagan's vaunted Star Wars system was abandoned largely because it was recognised as too expensive to protect every American city. America fell back on the Cold War view that the mutually assured destruction (Mad) that would occur if either side fired one of its missiles was a sufficient deterrent.

But it had second thoughts when the Cold War ended and rogue nuclear threats emerged. Protecting cities against the much smaller threat would not be as difficult or expensive.

The 1999 National Missile Defence Act, signed by President Clinton, committed America to deploying the £50 billion system "as soon as technologically possible". It is expected to involve space and ground-based sensors to provide early warning; ground-based radar to identify and track incoming missiles; ground-based interceptors to destroy enemy warheads; and a battle command, control and communications system.

Despite American assurances that it is intended to protect America from countries such as North Korea and Iraq, the Russians fear that its ultimate aim is to put them at a disadvantage. Gen Yakovlev said that if it did not go ahead and there was agreement on Start III, Moscow was prepared to get rid of all its intercontinental ballistic missiles, with the exception of 1,500 new Topol Ms, which have a range of 6,200 miles.

It was also willing to allow a resumption of the talks between Russian and American nuclear specialists that broke up when Nato attacked Yugoslavia last year. Gen Yakovlev said he believed that these expert discussions were the best way of pushing forward the Start process. "Only the professionals who handle these weapons understand how dangerous they really are."