U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher is promoting a missile shield radar site in the Czech Republic and NATO chief Rasmussen, when asked on November 1 about incorporating a radar facility in the Ukrainian town of Mukachevo into NATO's missile system, affirmed: "I think this invitation should be open to our Euro-Atlantic partners, so it is also an invitation to Ukraine if Ukraine so wishes." [10]
Despite the drumbeat of panic-mongering concerning non-existent threats to Europe all of Europe, even as far west as the British Isles emanating from the Persian Gulf and the Korean Peninsula, U.S. and NATO interceptor missile designs are, except for minor subsidiary facilities in Britain, Norway and Greenland, focused on Eastern Europe. From the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, along Russia's western flank.
But the preponderance of the latest discussions about, and controversy over, NATO cooperating with the European and more than just European component of U.S. worldwide interceptor missile plans affects Turkey.
Commentaries by sources within the nation and in neighboring countries have warned that the deployment of interceptor missile system elements in Turkey will have numerous negative, even dangerous, consequences.
The pressure brought to bear by the U.S. and NATO on Ankara, inevitably exerted in relation to NATO obligations, is designed to accomplish several geopolitical objectives that have nothing to do with alleged missile threats emanating from Iran, Syria or even more absurdly North Korea.
Turkey is being pressed to resume the role it played in the second half of the past century as the easternmost and southernmost outpost of NATO. As the West's military spearhead against the Soviet Union, later Russia, to the north and the Middle East to the south and east, stationing U.S. and NATO warplanes and nuclear bombs for potential use in those three directions.
Turkey has in recent years improved state-to-state relations and even security ties with Iran, Russia and Syria. Joining Washington's and Brussels' missile shield program would endanger is intended to sabotage those emerging partnerships.
In addition to the proposed inauguration of interceptor missile sites in Romania and Bulgaria, Turkey's neighbors on the Black Sea, two years ago the Pentagon opened an interceptor missile Forward-Based X-Band Radar base in Israel, accompanied by the first deployment of foreign troops approximately 100 U.S. military personnel in the nation's history. [11]
Washington is also planning to expand its sale of anti-ballistic missiles to American and NATO partners in the Persian Gulf Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as part of unprecedented weapons packages worth $123 billion. Those five states have been equipped with or will receive American anti-ballistic missiles ranging from short-range Patriot Advanced Capability-3 to medium-range Standard Missile-3 to medium- and intermediate-range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles. [12]
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile launch
The U.S. has also deployed ship-based SM-3s in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf and has plans to obtain and upgrade land-based facilities in the South Caucasus. [13]
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