The United States faces an uphill battle in its quest for increased European investment in missile defense capabilities, according to a missile defense expert.
“If the U.S. basically asked Europe for burden sharing on missile defense, I would be surprised if Europe would agree to that,” Tom Collina of the Arms Control Association (ACA) told sister publication Defense Daily May 29. “I think the only way it gets built is if the U.S. pays the whole bill.”
The Defense Department continued its call for NATO allies to increase their contributions to European missile defense. Defense Department Senior Civilian Representative of the Secretary of Defense in Europe (SECDEFREPEUR) and the Defense Adviser (DEFAD) to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Bell called on allies to increase contributions to NATO missile defense architecture, especially in either upper-tier (high-altitude) sea-based or land-based capabilities.
Europe is resisting burden sharing on missile defense, Collina said, because member states didn’t really want it in the first place, but only accepted it because the United States was willing to pay for it. Bell said there are currently no European programs that would be equivalent to Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) sea-based, upper-tier intercept capability nor any programs to build something that would be equal to Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).
SM-3, developed by Raytheon [RTN], is deployable on land or at sea and is supposed to destroy short to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats. SM-3 uses an exoatmospheric kill vehicle to collide with targets in space. THAAD, developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT], includes five major components: launchers, interceptors, radar, THAAD fire control and communications units and THAAD-specific support equipment.
“The robustness or resilience of defense would be strengthened if the Europeans brought capabilities equivalent to Aegis or THAAD, or just bought Aegis and THAAD, or co-produced Aegis and THAAD into this architecture,” Bell told an audience at Peter Huessy congressional breakfast series event on Capitol Hill.
Bell said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has encouraged greater allied contribution to NATO missile defense efforts over the years. But Bell said European allies have been reluctant to increase their own investment in NATO missile defense because the United States has already made an “iron-clad commitment” to deploy capabilities through Phase 3 of the NATO missile defense system as well as to provide full coverage of NATO Europe. Phase 3 will include introduction of the second Aegis Ashore site in Poland with another SPY-1 radar and 24 SM-3 missiles. It will also include SM-3 Block IIA, which will give the system an “enhanced” capability to address intermediate-range ballistic missiles and a “limited” capability to address ICBMs. Phase 3 is scheduled for deployment in 2018.
“The Europeans increasingly have to pick their spots in terms of prioritization in the capabilities they really want to invest in, and missile defense, with some exceptions, has simply not come up on the short list,” Bell said.
That’s no surprise, according to Collina, who said only a couple NATO allies, Poland and Romania, are truly excited for missile defenses while others, like Western Europe allies like Germany and France, remain skeptical.
“I don’t think they necessarily have the same level of confidence that U.S. missile defenses are all that effective and they don’t see it as a priority defense need for them,” Collina said. “They’d rather put their money other places.”
Bell said one exception is the Netherlands, which has invested around $340 million to upgrade the radars on its naval combatants so they’re Aegis interoperable. Bell said a few other European nations are considering comparable steps, but he didn’t specify them. The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system is the primary sea-based component of the U.S. missile defense system, which differs from NATO’s. Aegis integrates a SPY-1 radar, MK 41 vertical launching system and SM-3 missile. Aegis is also developed by Lockheed Martin.
Collina said he believes many of the NATO missile defense skeptics subscribe to the deterrence theory, in that if a rogue nation were to attack a NATO ally, the alliance would devastate the rogue nation in return.
“From that perspective, missile defense is really irrelevant,” Collina said.