Mismanaging Missile Defense

The Promise of Euro Atlantic Missile Defense

developing cooperative missile defense and early warning systems

Moreover, reducing nuclear weapons to a minimum might theoretically enhance the usefulness of missile defense systems and their destabilizing role. And even non strategic missile defense systems, the deployment of which might be useful, will be questioned.

For these reasons, the time has come to move forward on missile defense. We need a decision, by NATO s next summit in November, that missile defense is an Alliance mission, and that we will explore every opportunity to cooperate with Russia.

But Russia also must decide to view missile defense as an opportunity, rather than a threat. If that happens, we can move forward to create a missile defense system that not only defends the Euro Atlantic community, but that also brings it together.

These show convoys of heavy weapons moving on the peninsula, including missile systems intended for coastal defense.

Proliferators must know that the NATO allies are unwavering in their commitment to collective defense, including nuclear deterrence. Confronted with the spread of missile technology, and unpredictable regimes and leaders, we owe it to our populations to complement our deterrence capabilities with an effective missile defense capability.

Missile defense has suddenly emerged as a divisive issue in Europe. Rather than enhancing European security, the Bush administration s plan to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic threatens to increase strains with Russia and deepen divisions with America s European allies, particularly those in Eastern Europe, where support for US polices has been strongest.

Secretary of Defense, was warmly welcomed by Hu and other Chinese leaders days before the Washington summit. He even toured the People s Liberation Army s missile corps.

The US can still win the missile debate in Europe, but only if it stops treating missile defense primarily as a technological issue and addresses the broader political concerns that are driving the debate among European publics, including those in Eastern Europe.

NATO itself is developing protections for our deployed troops. But with the new US approach to missile defense, there are now much better opportunities for an effective NATO wide system that would enhance the territorial defense of our populations and nations.

The growing opposition to the US missile defense deployment is rooted in the way in which America has managed or rather mismanaged the presentation of its deployment plans.

Some American defense analysts view China s maritime strategy as being clearly aggressive. They point to increasing defense expenditures and the development of missile and submarine technology designed to cordon off the seas extending from China s coast to the first island chain of Taiwan and Japan.

But there is another reason for developing missile defense to create a new dynamic in European and Euro Atlantic security. There is nbsp much talk these days about the Euro Atlantic security architecture.

On the other hand, the missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the prospect of NATO accession for Georgia and Ukraine, assume confrontation where this was not at all necessary.

The Japanese government has also been searching for effective measures to respond to North Korea s consistently insincere attitude on regional and bilateral issues, including the abduction cases. Militarily, Japan revised its law on the Self Defense Forces to establish procedures for ballistic missile defense, with a strong focus on North Korea.

Missile defense has become another bone of contention. The language in the preamble to New START states that the agreement will not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties.

Their regional environment has become much more unstable and unpredictable. Only a few days ago, Israel s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted a rocket fired from Sinai that was aimed at the port of Eilat.

Yet Indonesia is also trying to align itself with Asia s rising power, China, by seeking greater defense and security cooperation. As a result of these improved relations, Indonesia has received Chinese short range missile technology.

Japan s Self Defense Defense

This process has been accelerated by a confluence of defense industry reforms, comprehensive military upgrading, and integration of innovative operational concepts. The net effect is a growing capability of China s strategic missile forces and military space platforms.

At the same time, US officials deny that their country s missile defense programs are directed against Russia or China, but refuse to offer a legally binding guarantee. And the US Department of Defense is developing a robust program of long range conventional strike weapons, which China and Russia cite to justify their efforts to strengthen their offensive nuclear forces.

Ukraine's integration into NATO, by contrast, would have far reaching strategic consequences, ending any residual Russian hopes of forming a ampquot Slavic Unionampquot composed of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine a dream that still beats in the breast of many Russians. It would also have important implications for the Russian defense industry, notably air defense and missile production.

One of Russia s main concerns is America s efforts to build up its ballistic missile defense system (BMDS). Although experts have disputed the capacity of America s BMDS, Russian leaders remain convinced that it could seriously undermine Russia s nuclear deterrent.

Various reports suggest that China is selectively enhancing its strategic and tactical missile capabilities by developing solid fuel motors diversifying its range of warheads and increasing their accuracy deploying missiles with multiple warheads and upgrading its ballistic missile defense countermeasures, such as decoys, chaff, jamming, and thermal shielding, and possibly maneuverable reentry vehicles (MaRVs) and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs).

A Missile Command clone

North Korea s Blackmail Missile

North Korea s Missile Tantrum

Example 2 Missile monitoring

Projects such as the space based ballistic missile defence system, contrary to their much deserved international attention, are neither obtaining the necessary funding nor are they being pushed forward by the Defense Department for fear of potential public opposition.

It provoked the missile gap.

The winds began to change that December, when the US announced that it was withdrawing from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, in order to build an antimissile defense system to protect itself from a potentially nuclearized Iran. This did not go unnoticed in Russia.

Second, US officials initially tended to view missile defense largely as a technological issue divorced from its political context. For most Europeans, however, the military technical issues are less important than the broader political implications of deployment for European stability and security.

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50

Even so, Russian and Western officials continue to spar over American plans to deploy ballistic missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. In his speech in November to the Russian parliament on the state of nation, President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russia would deploy short range Iskander missiles in the Baltic Sea port of Kaliningrad to neutralize if necessary the anti ballistic missile system in Europe.

In Ukraine, political forces resisting closer strategic links to the West have gained ground. And the Kremlin is aggressively portraying the planned establishment of a modest US missile defense installation in Poland and the Czech Republic as a threat to Russia s vital security interests.

Indeed, the best guarantee of American extended deterrence over Japan remains the presence of nearly 50,000 American troops (which Japan helps to maintain with generous host nation support). Credibility is also enhanced by joint projects such as the development of regional ballistic missile defense.

Control Marks and Spencer USB Missile Launcher

Table 3 Missile related equipment and materials

Debating Defense

The events of the past few months are the consequences of shortsightedly seeking to impose one s will while ignoring the interests of one s partners. A shortlist of such faits accomplis would include NATO enlargement, the war in Yugoslavia (particularly Kosovo), missile defense plans, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

China shares Russia s concerns about US conventional and missile defense superiority, and is increasing and modernizing its estimated 240 weapon stockpile. With China taking that course, India outside the NPT but with 100 weapons of its own feels the need to add to its own arsenal.

The absence of international inspectors, the accessibility of critical foreign missile parts and components, and accumulated experience from past missile projects were crucial contributing factors in the resumption of proscribed missile activities by Iraq in the period from 1999 to 2002.

So that's what we call the misguided missile.