Missile Defense
Richard Weitz writes: With respect to the current negotiations, the ideal solution would have been to defer the missile defense issue to negotiations on the next Russian-U.S. nuclear treaty, but the premature revelations about the Romanian and Bulgarian deployments have made this more difficult. As a result, the Obama administration is now faced with a tough balancing act. It must negotiate language in the current treaty talks that registers Russia's concerns about the inherit link between strategic offense and strategic defense. But it must do so without accepting binding constraints that would cause more than one-third of the U.S. Senate to oppose the new agreement. – World Politics Review
The State Department said Thursday there will be no direct link between missile defenses and U.S. and Russian offensive strategic weapons cuts in the language of the nearly finished successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the treaty and text of the final agreement are still being negotiated and reports that the U.S. side in the talks will link missile defenses to START are untrue. U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle stated on his Russian-language blog that the new treaty will refer to missile defenses in the text. The comment prompted reports from Moscow that the U.S. had made a concession to Russia on the issue, reports Mr. Crowley said were untrue. "As we have made clear to the Russians through this negotiation, there is no direct link between [missile defense and strategic offensive arms]," Mr. Crowley said. – Washington Times
U.S. missile-defense plans are a threat to
Russian national security and have slowed down progress on a new arms-control
treaty with Washington, Russia's top military officer said Tuesday. Gen.
Nikolai Makarov said that a revised U.S. plan to place missiles in Europe
undermines Russia's national defense, rejecting Obama administration promises
that the plan is not directed at his country. "We view it very negatively,
because it could weaken our missile forces," Gen. Makarov, the chief of
the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks. Gen. Makarov's
comments are the strongest yet on the revamped U.S. missile effort and signal
potential new obstacles to an agreement on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty
to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired Dec. 5. – Associated Press
Romania’s top defense body approved an American proposal to base missile interceptors there, the country’s president said Thursday in a hastily arranged announcement. The president, Traian Basescu, said in a statement that Romania, a former Warsaw Pact member and now part of NATO, was prepared to negotiate with the United States to accept ground-based interceptors as part of an antiballistic missile defense system. He said it could be working by 2015. While the participation of Poland and the Czech Republic in the missile shield had been well known, the possibility that Romania would join them was not. Romania made its announcement as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was in Turkey for a NATO meeting. – New York Times
North Korea is expected to deploy a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching
parts of the United States in the next decade, despite two long-range missile
flight-test failures, according to the Pentagon's ballistic-missile defense review.
The review report, made public this week, concluded that missile threats from
several states, including Iran, Syria, China and Russia, are growing
"quantitatively and qualitatively," and it outlined Pentagon plans
for silo-based and mobile anti-missile systems to counter them. On North
Korea, the report disclosed for the first time the U.S. intelligence estimate
of when Pyongyang will be able to reach the technically challenging threshold
of producing a nuclear device small enough to be carried on a missile.
"We must assume that sooner or later, North Korea will have a successful
test of its Taepodong-2 and, if there are no major changes in its national
security strategy in the next decade, it will be able to mate a nuclear warhead
to a proven delivery system," the report said. – Washington
Times
Read the Ballistic Missile Defense Review (pdf)
Richard Bitzinger writes: As
ballistic-missile threats have proliferated throughout Asia-Pacific, so too has
MD. Japan is cooperating with the United States to create a two-tiered MD
system, comprising the Sea-based Midcourse Defense (SMD) system and the
land-based Patriot PAC-3 missile. SMD offers improvements to the current
Aegis air defense system, including the addition of the Standard SM-3 Block IA
missile, to intercept exoatmospheric missile threats. Japan is incorporating
SMD into four current and two planned Aegis-equipped destroyers; they should be
fully deployed by 2011. Until then, the U.S. Navy will provide limited missile
defense coverage of Japan using its own Aegis-class SMD ships based in the Sea
of Japan. Equally important, U.S. and Japanese defense companies are
cooperating on developing the next-generation SM-3 Block IIA, a larger and more
powerful missile…Australia and South Korea are also acquiring air-warfare
destroyers (AWDs) that use the Aegis/ Standard missile
combination…Increasingly, the hardware exists for a pan-Asian missile defense;
what is then needed is the software of jointness and interoperability. Even
here, some progress is being made. – Defense
News
Rep. Michael Turner writes: In sharp contrast to the previous administration, the President Barack Obama made sweeping changes to our nations missile defense portfolio last year. It slashed the Missile Defense Agency budget by $1.2 billion, reduced the planned number of missile interceptors in Alaska that were intended to protect the U.S. homeland, cut nearly all investments in future capabilities, and dramatically changed missile defense plans for Europe. Yet it appears the Obama administration is now quietly shifting its missile defense policy. Perhaps the policy change is finally being driven by operational and threat analysis. Or perhaps it was a realization that these policy changes are harder to implement than first thought and more costly over the long-term. Nevertheless, the presidents Fiscal Year 2011 budget request to be released on February 1 will be the litmus test for whether the administration is truly committed to its missile defense policy or merely paying it -- and our nation and allies -- lip service. – Washington Times
A US missile defence test designed to shoot down long-range missiles was aborted when the radar system failed. Rick Lehner, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman, said the target missile represented the type of technology that North Korea or Iran might develop. The target was launched from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific and the interceptor missile from California. The Pentagon said those two components performed as expected, but the sea-based X-band radar system failed. – BBC
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed on Jan. 29 Washington's willingness to cooperate with Moscow on plans to field a ballistic missile defense system in the Eastern Mediterranean, as she emphasized the importance of European security to the Obama administration. "We are engaged in productive discussions with our European allies about building a new missile defense architecture that will defend all of NATO territory against ballistic missile attack," Clinton said to a packed hall at the Ecole Militaire staff college here. "Missile defense, we believe, will make this continent a safer place. That safety could extend to Russia if Russia decides to cooperate with us. It is an extraordinary opportunity for us to work together to build our mutual security. We are very serious about cooperating with Russia to develop missile defenses that enhance all of Europe including Russia." Clinton's speech was billed by U.S. officials as an important policy statement. - Defense News
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