"Along with space-based weapons, the Airborne Laser is the next defense frontier. The modified Boeing 747 is supposed to send an intense beam of light over hundreds of miles to destroy missiles in the ˜boost phase,' before they can release decoys and at a point in their trajectory when they would fall back down on enemy territory".The laser complements the sea- and ground-based missile defenses that keep proving themselves in tests.
"Never has Ronald Reagan's dream of layered missile defenses " Star Wars, for short " been as...close, at least technologically, to becoming realized. [14]
The Missile Defense Agency conducted a Space and Missile Defense Conference from August 17-20 of this year and during the proceedings the Boeing Company's vice president and general manager for missile defense Greg Hyslop presented a design for a "47,500-pound interceptor that could be flown to NATO bases as needed on Boeing-built C-17 cargo planes, erected quickly on a 60-foot trailer stand and taken home when judged safe to do so. One that would be "globally deployable within 24 hours". [15]
A nearly 50,000-pound mobile interceptor missile launcher deployable within hours, along with laser weapons and SM-3s, would fit in nicely with plans for a joint U.S.-NATO layered missile shield to take in the entire European continent except for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Though former director of the Missile Defense Agency Lieutenant General Henry Obering also mentioned Ukraine for inclusion in the system during his tenure at the agency.
When U.S. President Barack Obama, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout - seemingly in unison and at practically the same time - spoke of enhanced missile shield cooperation between Washington and Brussels, the foundation of what such a system would entail is indicated by the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).
MEADS is a joint U.S.-German-Italian-NATO theater interceptor missile program to upgrade current Patriot and Nike Hercules systems in Europe under NATO command and "will provide capabilities beyond any other fielded or planned air and missile defense system. It will be easily deployed to a theater of operation. [16] It includes forward-based X-band radar, 360 degree surveillance radar, missile launchers and next-generation Patriot interceptor missiles.
"MEADS is interoperable with other defense systems....It can work in association with other missile defense systems, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the Aegis sea-based missile defense systems".MEADS...may be able to make a material contribution the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense system that NATO planners are currently designing. [17]
Foreshadowing the news of September 17, last month the White House requested almost $600 million in funding for MEADS for next year and "Congress is on track to support the Administration's request. [18]
The Times of London responded to the news about Poland and the Czech Republic with a feature detailing the advancement of the Star Wars program since Ronald Reagan first announced it in 1983. It mentioned, inter alia, Aegis class warships "fitted with Standard [SM-3] missiles that are capable of intercepting enemy rockets, just like the systems based at Fort Greely in Alaska and at Vandenberg airbase in California" and "an airborne laser...that can destroy ballistic missiles by heating them until they fail structurally," and situated these 21st Century innovations within a broader perspective:
"[T]he Americans have been installing [worldwide missile-tracking radar facilities] in locations around the globe: notably, upgrading the radar early-warning site at RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire and deploying X-band radar in Japan and Israel." [19]
To which should be added the U.S. missile-tracking base in Vardo, Norway, forty miles from the Russian border, and a comparable facility at the Thule Air Base in Greenland.
The news about the cancellation of plans for deploying a missile radar base in the Czech Republic was hailed by the No To Bases organization, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) and the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), all opponents of the project.
But the Czech Social Democrats, who currently have 32% support in the polls and are poised to win next year's federal elections, differ from other radar opponents in that they have no objection to missile shield components in their country per se but instead are in favor of bringing the Czech Republic into a continent-wide NATO system rather than into a bilateral U.S.-Czech one.
Obama's and Gates' statements should satisfy that preference, one which prefigures a wider and permanent interceptor missile system that takes in most all of Europe and North America. If that scenario continues to materialize the relief and enthusiasm that greeted September 17th's news in many parts of the world may prove to be short-lived.
1) Russian Information Agency Novosti, September 17, 2009
2) Ibid
3) U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans
Stop NATO, September 11, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/u-s-expands-global-missile-shield-into-middle-east-balkans/
Balkans Revisited: U.S., NATO Expand Military Role In Southeastern Europe
Stop NATO, September 14, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/266/
4) Russia Today, September 17, 2009
5) New York Times, September 17, 2009
6) Russia Today, September 17, 2009
7) Ibid
8) Wikipedia
9) Reuters, September 17, 2009
10) Czech News Agency, September 17, 2009
11) Russian Information Agency Novosti, September 17, 2009
12) Pentagon Intensifies Plans For Global Military Supremacy: U.S., NATO Could
Deploy Mobile Missiles Launchers To Europe
Stop NATO, August 22, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/pentagon-intensifies-plans-for-global-military-supremacy-u-s-nato-could-deploy-mobile-missiles-launchers-to-europe/
U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system/
Militarization Of Space: Threat Of Nuclear War On Earth
Stop NATO, June 18, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/militarization-of-space-threat-of-nuclear-war-on-earth
21st Century Star Wars And NATO's 60th Anniversary
Stop NATO, January 15, 2009
13) Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2009
14) Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2009
15) Reuters, August 20, 2009
16) Wikipedia
17) Heritage Foundation, August 17, 2009
18) Ibid
19) The Times, September 17, 2009
[Editor's Note: Read Robert Gates' NYTimes OpEd here]
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
