By Marina Malenic
The Obama administration plans to provide full missile defense coverage of Europe against an Iranian attack by 2018 using “proven” U.S. systems, top Defense Department officials said last week.
Bradley Roberts, deputy assistant defense secretary for nuclear and missile defense policy, told members of a House Armed Services subcommittee on April 15 that the planned missile defense system would cover “100 percent” of Europe by deploying land- and sea-based missile interceptors around the continent.
President Barack Obama scrapped a Bush-era plan for European missile defense last fall that would have involved building a large radar base in the Czech Republic and deploying 10 Boeing [BA] long-range missile interceptors in Poland, providing coverage for three quarters of Europe. That plan was replaced by what the administration is calling a “phased adaptive approach” that it says will cover the entire continent (Defense Daily, Sept. 18).
“We heard immediately from vulnerable allies in the…75 percent equation, those left out, that they were looking for protection,” Roberts told lawmakers. “We wanted to meet their demands for protection and scale the capability as the threat evolves and as our capability improves.”
Russia has continued to object to U.S. missile defense, saying interceptors could negate Moscow’s nuclear deterrent. Washington, however, maintains that Iran is the target of the defensive effort, which is too small to defend against Russia’s hundreds of nuclear-tipped missiles.
The Obama administration is studying locations in southern Europe for installation of a radar system by next year, Roberts said. Meanwhile, he said, sea-based Lockheed Martin [LMT] Aegis and Standard Missile 3 interceptors would be deployed in the Mediterranean. By 2015, improved interceptors and radars would be fielded in addition to a first land-based SM-3 facility in southern Europe. The final two stages include land and sea fielding of even-more sophisticated versions of SM-3 interceptors, according to Roberts and U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly.
O’Reilly, also testifying at the hearing, told lawmakers that the long-range interceptors that would have been based in Poland would have been priced at $70 million each compared to the $10 million to $15 million for a single SM-3.
The general also dismissed allegations by Republican lawmakers that a new nuclear arms control treaty with Moscow could undermine U.S. missile defense plans for Europe.
“The new START treaty actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program,” O’Reilly said. “Our targets will no longer be subject to START constraints, which limited our use of air-to-surface and waterborne launches of targets which are essential for a cost-effective testing of missile defense interceptor against medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the Pacific region.”