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U.S.-Europe: Pentagon Requests European Bases, Participation By David Ruppe Seeking to begin European participation in a program scheduled to cost tens of billions of dollars, “The United States will structure our missile defense program in a manner that encourages industrial participation by other nations,” the statement said. The statement also suggested the U.S. system would to provide missile protection in Europe. “The Defense Department will develop and deploy missile defenses capable of protecting not only the United States and our deployed forces, but also our friends and allies,” the statement said, reaffirming a policy established at the beginning of the Bush administration. The deployments would involve upgrading existing U.S. capabilities at the bases, which were not identified, but which government officials previously have indicated are the Royal Air Force base at Fylingdales and the Thule air base in northwestern Greenland, a Danish territory. Upgrades to the British base Menwith Hill also have been under consideration. Advanced radars at those bases, experts said, would help provide defense against future ballistic missile threats that might emerge from Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Iraq. The White House simultaneously announced today plans to deploy missile defense systems in the Pacific, which experts said are intended to defend against a possible North Korean missile threat (see related GSN story, today). Canadian officials recently have announced they would not participate, at least for the near term, in a joint missile defense project with the United States (see GSN, Dec. 16). Analysts said Britain is almost certain to approve the request, while a response from Denmark is less certain because of opposition among native groups in Greenland and the election there this month of a pro-independence coalition government believed to be skeptical about participation. Senior officials of the two countries have said they would first bring such a proposal to a national debate before arriving at a decision. “I think the likelihood is fairly high that the British government is going to agree to it,” said Nigel Chamberlain, spokesman for the British American Security Information Council. Danish approval, he said, “is less clear cut, because while the Danish government has final say over the Greenland government, the Greenland government does have a certain autonomy to speak out.”
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