By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — NATO heads of state last week agreed to initiate a study of options for national missile defenses, in what experts said was at least a symbolic concession to U.S. missile defense objectives.

The leaders agreed to conduct a feasibility study of developing defenses to protect against long- and short-range ballistic missile threats to protect NATO homelands and population centers.  NATO previously had studied only theater missile defenses for protecting deployed forces in the field. 

“Today we initiated a new NATO missile defense feasibility study to examine options for protecting alliance territory, forces and population centers against the full range of missile threats, which we will continue to assess,” the leaders said Thursday at their meeting in Prague.

The declaration has symbolic importance, says Otfried Nassauer, director of the Berlin Information Center for Trans-Atlantic Security, because with this move, “NATO turns away from the assumption that there will be no strategic missiles and it takes up the U.S. risk assessment.”

The United States had been pushing heavily for the new analysis, officials and experts said, as it would consider defenses against ICBMs, the longest-range ballistic missiles, and threats to populations and territories, both major focuses of the controversial U.S. national missile defense program.

While the Bush administration has sought ICBM defenses against perceived threats developing from North Korea and the Middle East, experts said most of NATO’s European territory would not require long-range defenses for protection against missiles fired from states such as Iran and Iraq.

The new study was made legally possible when the United States withdrew in June from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which barred the United States from cooperating on national missile defenses, experts said (see GSN, June 13).

The statement also appeared somewhat symbolic since NATO’s Atlantic Council, its political decision-making body, had two weeks earlier already directed initiation of the new study.

Jeremy Stocker, a research associate with the Royal United Services Institute said the declaration was not so much a breakthrough as an incremental step toward supporting strategic missile defense development.

“What we’ve seen in the course of the last few years in Britain and to a less extent Europe is a series of incremental steps forward.  This is merely the latest,” he said.

He cited as another example a comment by British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon earlier this month, that “developing the capacity to defend against the threat of ballistic missile attack is as much in the interest of the U.K. and its people as it is in the interest of the United States” (see GSN, Nov. 13).

Differences of Perceived Necessity

The Bush administration sees the study as an important step toward trans-Atlantic cooperation on fielding missile defenses.

“This will establish the framework within which NATO allies can work cooperatively toward fielding the required capabilities,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton in a speech days before the summit. 

The United States has spent an estimated $60 billion on developing national missile defense systems during the past 10 years and hopes to begin deploying a proven system this decade.

European governments, however, continue to appear skeptical about whether national missile defense technology would actually work, could be affordable and is necessary and beneficial.

The British arms procurement minister, Willy Bach, said last week he viewed “no essential need at the present time” for his country to cooperate on developing national missile defenses.  He said the British “priority at this stage” is to protect its deployed forces and it would only agree to cooperation on national missile defense “if we’re convinced that the security of the United Kingdom or NATO would be enhanced.”

NATO members have indicated support for other ways of addressing ballistic missile threats, such as through diplomacy and deterrent force, and the joint NATO statement issued by the leaders also stressed that such approaches were not being abandoned.

“We reaffirm that disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation make an essential contribution to preventing the spread and use of WMD and their means of delivery.  We stress the importance of abiding by and strengthening existing multilateral nonproliferation and export control regimes and international arms control and disarmament accords,” the statement said.

Bach last week mentioned the scheduled signing at The Hague this week of an International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation as an important way of dealing with ballistic missile threats (see related GSN story, today).

Bolton, appearing at the missile conference yesterday, said the new code would be a companion to, rather than a substitute for missile defense.

“We view our missile defense efforts as complementary to, and consistent with the objectives of, the ICOC and the MTCR [Missile Technology Control Regime].  Each seeks in different ways to protect us from the dangers posed by WMD and ballistic missile proliferation,” he said.

“We are now in the process of discussing with allies and friends, including the Russian Federation, cooperation on missile defense programs because our nation is hardly alone in needing the additional protection that such programs can provide.”

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