Moscow angered by US plan for 'star wars' bases in Europe to counter threat of Iran

24 May 2006 In a move that is raising hackles in Moscow, the US is proposing to install an anti-missile defence system in central Europe to counter any future attack from a nuclear-armed Iran.

The plan, for which the Pentagon has requested $56m (£30m) of exploratory funding from Congress, would cost $1.6bn and involve 10 interceptor units.

The most likely base for the system is Poland, followed by the Czech Republic, officials said. For the moment, the scheme first reported in The New York Times this week and which would parallel the anti-missile shield under construction in Alaska and California against attacks from North Korea is largely symbolic and hypothetical.

Iran currently has no weapons capable of hitting western Europe, let alone an intercontinental missile that could strike the United States. But as a showdown moves closer between the West and Tehran over its uranium-enrichment programme, and with the Israeli Prime Minister in Washington warning that Iran represents a threat not only to Israel but to Western civilisation, the US is determined to send another signal of its determination to act.

The new shield would bring a direct US military presence deeper into Europe. And for Russia, the project reeks of American encroachment into what used to be its own sphere of influence. The move would have "a negative impact on the whole Euro-Atlantic security system", Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, told a Belarus newspaper, hinting at further strain on ever-delicate relations between Russia and Nato. The mooted site for the system was "dubious, to put it mildly", he said.

In 2002, President Bush upset Moscow by unilaterally pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long regarded in Moscow as the cornerstone of nuclear arms control.

The possible extension of missile defences into Poland or the Czech Republic both staunch American allies is the latest episode of a story that has inspired dreams and controversy in equal measure since it was first sketched out by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 as the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), quickly dubbed "Star Wars". But despite more than 20 years of work and tens of billions of dollars in spending, it is now accepted that any such shield would be overwhelmed by an attack from Russia, which possesses a nuclear arsenal comparable to the US.

It has now been scaled back to cope with the far more limited strike that North Korea might be able to deliver to the continental US by the end of the decade. So far, nine interceptor rockets are in place at Fort Greely in Alaska, and two more at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But the viability even of this version is questionable.

"It [the shield] has been doing very poorly," a former Pentagon official involved in the testing told The New York Times. "They have not had a successful flight intercept test in four years."

But the slow progress has not deterred extensive contacts between the US and Poland in particular. Polish press reports have said that Boeing, the lead company on the project, has already agreed to subcontract work to Polish concerns.

According to The New York Times, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is expected to receive a recommendation on a European site in the summer. If the plan for interceptors in Poland goes ahead, it would create the first permanent American military presence in the country.

At least as logical a site for the shield would be Britain, where the Pentagon is already upgrading equipment at the early warning radar base of Fylingdales in North Yorkshire. But the intense domestic unpopularity of Tony Blair who is meeting President Bush in Washington tomorrow and hostility to the Iraq war have ruled that option out.

Poland, on the other hand, has been a staunch ally of the US ever since Communism collapsed there in 1989. It is now a member of Nato, and has contributed troops to the occupation of Iraq.

"It [the shield] has been doing very poorly," a former Pentagon official involved in the testing told The New York Times. "They have not had a successful flight intercept test in four years."

Why am I not surprised at this phony assertion. By a phony paper likely from a phony 'official'...who obviously has an axe to grind. Many in the Pentagon always opposed missile defense...so they set about trying to undercut it from within.

Nonetheless...they have failed.

Ground Based element functional and worksMissile Defense Flight Test Successfully Completed - December 13, 2005

April 11, 2006, MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY CONDUCTS SUCCESSFUL DATA COLLECTION FLIGHT TEST

April 28, 2006 MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY CONDUCTS SECOND SUCCESSFUL DATA COLLECTION FLIGHT TEST

Just May 11, 2006 INTERCEPTOR COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL DEVELOPMENTAL FLIGHT TEST

And most tellingly...Aegis works:

Sea-Based Missile Defense "Hit To Kill" Intercept Achieved - November 17, 2005

Meanwhile we are deploying very serious 'link' assets that will make it an effective defense capability. Satellite sensors. X-Band radars. Etc. So much for the NYT and their "expert".

Meanwhile, I commend this report from Frank Gaffney's The Center For National Security:

Go Navy missile defense!
By Frank Gaffney
With each passing day, evidence grows that two of the world's most dangerous rogue states, North Korea and Iran, will be able to equip their arsenals of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. The prospect that American forces, allies and interests - and ultimately the United States itself - will be at risk from attack by such weapons offers a powerful validation of President Bush's visionary and courageous determination to deploy defenses against ballistic missile-delivered threats.
Missile Defense, from the Sea
Last Thursday, the United States Navy confirmed that the President's vision can be realized in a near-term and highly cost-effective way - from the sea. For the fifth time out of six attempts, Navy ships successfully tracked, intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile in-fight, using their existing AEGIS fleet air defense systems and a new Standard Missile, dubbed the SM-3.
Three features make this test particularly significant: For the first time, the hardware and software utilized was the operational configuration (known as AEGIS BMD 3.0) that will be installed in all other AEGIS missile defense ships. No less noteworthy is the fact that the SM-3 utilized to shoot down the target was one of the first of the production rounds to come off the manufacturing line. And, the personnel used to conduct the test were the regular crew of the U.S.S. Lake Erie.
In other words, this was the "real deal." The option of complementing land-based anti-missile defenses with sea-based assets capable of both tracking ballistic missiles and destroying them in-flight is now in hand.
In addition to the exemplary performance of the Lake Erie and her crew, Thursday's test also featured another important development. A second AEGIS ship, the USS Russell, brought to bear for the first time a new capability known as the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Signal Processor (BMSP). This S-Band radar provided real-time discrimination and classification of the target, information that considerably enhances the probability of intercept. The AEGIS BMSP holds great promise for expanding missile defense radar coverage at a fraction of the cost of other approaches.
The enemy is Us
These achievements are all the more remarkable for another reason: The sea-based missile defense program has, for most of the past thirteen years, suffered from minimal support from the Navy's leadership and outright hostility from the Pentagon's missile defense bureaucracy. The former have tended to see this mission as a diversion of scarce resources from the other priority air- and sea-control duties for which the AEGIS ships were designed.
For the latter, sea-based anti-missile systems have generally been anathema, albeit for varying reasons. During the Clinton years, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was sacrosanct and even seagoing missile defenses that were incapable of stopping long-range ballistic missiles - and therefore not covered by the Treaty - were considered to be problematic. Consequently, the Navy's programs were often starved of funds.
Amazingly, things have not been much better under a George W. Bush administration that came to office determined to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and to deploy effective, global missile defenses at the earliest possible time. Missile Defense Agency has largely been allowed to give short shrift to the development and deployment of Navy anti-missile systems, in favor of ground-based interceptors and longer-term research and development efforts.
Unfortunately, shortly before the Navy's successful test, the Ground-based Missile Defense system experienced the latest in a series of experimental setbacks. While the threat of missile attack demands that that program be brought to completion - and that such further testing and developmental work be conducted as is necessary to get there, the achievements of the sea-based missile defense program to date demands a much more assertive effort be undertaken to realize its potential.
Getting There from Here
Such an effort should involve the following components:
-- Accelerate procurement of SM-3 missiles. Present plans call for the deployment of just 30 such missiles by 2007, of which only a few would be the Block I interceptor successfully tested last week. The rest would be upgraded Block Ia missiles that have yet to be proven, let alone put into full-scale production. A larger buy of both could enable more ships to be missile defense-capable, affording protection to larger areas of the globe and reducing the unit costs of the interceptors.
-- Retain five AEGIS cruisers that are being decommissioned at a roughly the half-way point in their planned service life. These vessels can be configured to be effective anti-missile ships at a fraction of the cost of new construction .
-- Resuscitate a program terminated several years ago to afford the Navy's fleets protection against short-range ballistic missile attack. Scuds and similar missiles available to North Korea, Iran and China, among other potentially hostile states, demand the deployment at the earliest possible time of a capability like that of the so-called SM-2 Block IVa program.
-- Maximize the interoperability of U.S. sea-based missile defenses with the AEGIS ships of allied fleets - including those of Japan, Australia, Spain, Norway and South Korea. Doing so can complement America's efforts to provide truly global protection against ballistic missile attack to our own forces, people and interests, while helping to defray the costs of such protection.
The Bottom Line
Missile defenses are more required now than ever. The time has come to assign the Navy the mission and the resources necessary to provide comprehensive defenses from the sea.

The above report now can be updated...there have now been six of seven successful naval intercepts of ballistic missiles. Time to deploy, Mr. Rumsfeld. Time to Deploy.

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