United States:  Officials Urge NATO Allies to Join Missile Defense Effort

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

LONDON — A handful of senior Bush administration officials advocated trans-Atlantic missile defense cooperation here Monday and Tuesday in the most visible sign yet of a campaign to urge seemingly reluctant NATO allies to join the ambitious U.S. missile defense effort.

“The train is about to pull out of the station.  We invite our friends, allies and the Russian Federation to climb on board,” Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton told a conference here yesterday.

Bolton was among five senior U.S. officials speaking at the conference, organized by the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies and sponsored by Boeing Co. to examine possibilities for international missile defense cooperation.  Also speaking were U.S. NATO Mission defense adviser Evan Galbraith, U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle and Defense Science Board Chairman William Schneider.  The latter two spoke as private citizens.

Mixed Reviews

The U.S. officials said international cooperation on missile defense against long-range threats and threats to home territory and population became possible last June when the United States pulled out of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.  European governments, however, have so far shown mixed signals about whether they might sign on to the U.S. program, which involves developing multiple systems for identifying, tracking and intercepting potential short-, medium- and long-range ballistic missile threats.

Nongovernmental organizations and legislators have criticized the U.S. program substantially in the European news media.  The United Kingdom — which is considered one of the most likely partners given its strong ties with the United States and location — has indicated reluctance to join.  A top British defense official speaking at the conference said that the United Kingdom’s current priority is developing theater missile defense for British forces.

“Protection of our deployed forces remains our priority at this stage,” Lord Bach, undersecretary of state and minister of state for defense procurement, said.

Similarly, British Secretary of State for Defense Geoffrey Hoon suggested in a Nov. 12 speech that the time for a British decision on pursuing the U.S. approach could be some time off.

“As the threat grows and technologies develop, there may come a day when we need to decide to add a further capability to our current range of responses by acquiring missile defenses for the United Kingdom and for Europe as a whole, in the way the United States has already decided,” Hoon said.

On the other hand, this month the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s political and decision-making body, approved initiating a feasibility study on developing national missile defenses to protect allied territory and population centers against long-range threats and other dangers, Bolton said.  In June 2001, before the end of the ABM Treaty, the alliance had contracted for an 18-month feasibility study of shorter-range theater missile defenses for protecting troops.

Alliance defense ministers last June issued a statement saying that “alliance territory and population centers will also face an increasing missile threat.”  The statement called for an assessment of ways to address the perceived threat “in an effective and efficient way through an appropriate mix of political and defense efforts.”  The United States has been urging NATO heads of state attending the alliance’s Prague Summit Thursday and Friday to issue a statement in favor of examining various options for defending against missile threats.

Arguments in Favor

U.S. officials argued that existing proliferation threats warrant a U.S.-European defense system, that previous concerns that such a system would undermine arms control have proven groundless with the demise of the ABM Treaty and that the time to join the United States is now, while the concept of the system is still being developed.

With the demise of the ABM Treaty, which restricted international long-range missile defense cooperation, “we can identify opportunities and options for increased cooperation with friends and allies,” Bolton said.  “Without the ability to protect allied territory and population centers from missile attack, NATO’s vulnerability to political coercion and blackmail will only increase,” he said.

“The initial need for missile defense is in Europe.  The threat is coming from places like Libya, like Iraq, like Iran,” Galbraith said.  “The fact that governments are hesitating to perceive this threat is rather discouraging,” he said.

Schneider said the ballistic missile threat is “not an episodic problem that is related to a particular, regional or bilateral security problem.”

“It’s an enduring problem that derives from the nature of the technology itself, its pervasiveness and its accessibility,” he said.

Missile defense development could discourage potential adversaries from developing ballistic missiles, Schneider said.  It could “persuade countries that are investing in it now that this is not a sensible investment,” he said.

Kadish maintained recent successful intercept testing of U.S. missile defense systems has proven the basic technology.  “We are embarking now on something real ... We have confidence that this technology can work,” he said.

Kadish said the United States is open to a variety of cooperative arrangements.

“We’ve offered potential partners government-to-government agreements, in-kind investments, not necessarily monetary investments ... Or we could cooperate with entities, such as NATO or a European missile defense agency, or some other construct that might arise out of this discussion,” he said.

“But again, we have only been thinking about this since we withdrew from the treaty in June of this year,” he said.

Different Approaches to Dealing With Threat

Lord Bach said he believes there is a long-range ballistic missile threat.  He cited other ways in which he said London is addressing the issue through diplomacy, deterrence, multilateral export controls of missile technology and a scheduled multinational plan to adopt a code of conduct against ballistic missile proliferation at the Hague later this month.

A possible issue, however, that may force a British decision on joining the U.S. program is a U.S. request for use of radar at a British air force base.  Sites in the United Kingdom and Greenland are considered possible locations for U.S. national missile defense radars.  Kadish was to visit a prospective site at the Royal Air Force base Fylingdales later this week, a British official said.

Hoon said Nov. 7 that the United States had made no formal request to use British air bases for its long-range missile defense activities.

British Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien this month told the House of Commons that if such a request is received, “the government will consider it.  But the government would only agree to use of U.K. facilities if satisfied that the overall security of the U.K. and NATO would be enhanced.”  NATO member defense officials said the United States has yet to present an architecture for the proposed system, which would require them to make a decision about whether to cooperate.

U.S. missile defense officials, however, have said they do not intend to settle on an architecture until they the technologies are much more mature and the system is more fully developed.

The U.S. missile defense program is “a huge enterprise that will take years to come to fruition and there [are] yet no decisions about the overall shape of the defenses that they might deploy operationally,” Lord Bach said.

Back to top

U.S.-Russia:  Washington Invites Moscow to Witness Interceptor Test

The Bush administration has invited Russian officials to view the next planned missile interceptor flight test, scheduled to take place next month, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported today (see GSN, Nov. 6).

The United States and NATO are also cooperating with Russia on missile defense issues through the NATO-Russia Council, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said (see GSN, May 29).  The alliance is likely to add a statement on the necessity of missile defense development to the text of the final declaration of the NATO summit to be held in Prague, he said (RIA Novosti, Nov. 19).

For further information, see:

MDA Basics of Missile Defense

MDA Missile Defense System

Back to top

U.S. Plans:  Laser Ready For Airborne System

Raytheon has delievered the track illuminator laser — the first diode-pumped laser qualified for use on a military aircraft — as part of the Airborne Laser Program, the company said last week (see GSN, Nov. 1).

Boeing Co., which is developing the anti-ballistic missile laser program with Lockheed Martin and TRW, accepted the delivery.  Raytheon is the subcontractor responsible for building the track illuminator laser, one of four lasers that will be used in the system (Defense Daily, Nov. 15).

Back to top

United States:  Officials Fire Scud in Flight Experiment

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency yesterday launched and tracked a Scud missile in an effort to learn more about its flight path and mechanics to enhance U.S. missile defenses, an agency official said (see GSN, Oct. 22).

Officials closely studied the flight of the missile, which they launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, until it landed more than 100 miles off the U.S. coast in the Pacific Ocean, said Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, an agency spokesman.

“The data obtained from a variety of sensors observing the flight will contribute to the development of enhanced missile defense technologies to intercept and destroy Scuds and Scud-type missiles before they can reach their target,” Vandenberg said in a statement.

New sensors measured a variety of characteristics, including the Scud’s speed, altitude and engine burn rate.  U.S. officials last fired a Scud in 1997 (Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily, Nov. 15).

Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP