Gates asserted that the new system "provides a better missile defense capability...than the program I recommended almost three years ago." [5]
The Defense Secretary, then, has not indicated a change of course but rather a more sophisticated version of his previous plans.
He further stated that "We have now the opportunity to deploy new sensors and interceptors in northern and southern Europe that near term can provide missile defense coverage against more immediate threats from Iran or others."
Or others.
He specified the deployment of Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3 [Standard Missile-3] interceptors which "provide the flexibility to move interceptors from one region to another if needed. [6]
The U.S. currently has fifteen destroyers and three cruisers equipped with the Aegis combat system and has incorporated Norway, Spain, Australia, Japan and South Korea into what is developing as a worldwide, sea-based, rapid deployable missile shield structure. The USS Lake Erie, an Aegis class guided-missile cruiser, shot down an American satellite in space in February of 2008 with an SM-3 missile in what some in Russia saw as the opening salvo in American plans for war in space.
Gates further laid out his plans for the next generation Star Wars system in stating, "The second phase, about 2015, will involve fielded, upgraded, land-based SM-3s.
Lest anyone believe that Washington's new plans are an abandonment rather than a refinement of previous ones with Poland and the Czech Republic, Gates was obliging enough to reveal that the Pentagon has already opened negotiations with the two nations "about hosting a land-based version of the SM-3 and other components of the system. [7]
Nothing has been said about reversing U.S. designs to deploy 96 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles in Poland, ones "accurate enough to select, target, and home in on the warhead portion of an inbound ballistic missile." [8]
In fact all indications are that more PAC-3s are headed to Europe to be integrated into a multi-layered NATO missile shield grid to cover the entire continent.
On the same day that Obama and Gates made their pronouncements, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, "It is my clear impression that the American plans on missile defense will involve NATO as such to a higher degree in the future concerning the establishment of missile defense. I highly appreciate that. I think it is in full accordance with the principle of solidarity within the alliance and the indivisibility of security in Europe." Rasmussen gave particular attention to "our eastern allies within the NATO alliance." [9]
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout said that although the U.S. will not locate the X-band missile radar in his country that it originally intended to, "the Czech Republic will be able to join the new system that the USA wants to create within NATO," a new system that is "to be more flexible, more efficient and cheaper" and "is to protect the whole of Europe." [10]
As to what aspects the new system could include, former chief of the Russian General Staff Leonid Ivanov was cited as speculating "the U.S. could use military satellites and aircraft carrying laser weapons instead of the radar and interceptor missile base." [11]
Previous articles in this series have dealt with the Pentagon's Airborne Laser (ABL) missile interception program as well as all other facets of global and spaced-based missile shield components [12]. In August the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency announced that it had successfully deployed a modified Boeing 747-400F prototype airplane with laser weapons and that it "found, tracked, engaged and simulated an intercept with a missile seconds after liftoff. It was the first time the Agency used an ˜instrumented' missile to confirm the laser works as expected. Next up this fall will be the first live attempt to bring down a ballistic missile.... [13]
Shortly after the test described above, the Wall Street Journal applauded it in these terms:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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