And that is where proposed missile shield deployments in Turkey, Israel and the Balkans come into play.
Last autumn the United States began the stationing of its Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2), formerly the Forward Based X-Band Transportable [FBX-T] Radar, to Israel. The AN/TPY-2 is part of the U.S. Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor missile system, one intermediate between the ground-based interceptor missiles planned for Poland and the recently developed PAC-3 Patriot theater missile defense, "one of the most comprehensive upgrade programs ever undertaken on an American weapon system." [10]
The AN/TPY-2 "operates in the X-band frequency, and is capable of tracking and identifying small objects at long distance and at very high altitude, including space" and is a "high-power, transportable X-Band radar...designed to detect, track and discriminate ballistic missile threats." [11]
"The radar in Israel can be only the beginning of the development of the American anti-missile defense systems in the country, said a leading Russian analyst, Pavel Felgengauer, last September. [12]
In July of 2008 the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and his Israeli counterpart Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi approved the deployment and it was later confirmed by Pentagon chief Robert
Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, "marking the first permanent U.S. military presence on Israeli soil." [13]
A year ago September the U.S. Senate passed an amendment allocating $89 million for the project. At the time Fox New reported that "About 120 American technicians and security guards will be stationed in Israel's southern Negev Desert to oversee the operation, the first time in the country's 60-year history that they've allowed a foreign military presence to be based here." [14]
An Iranian news story shortly thereafter characterized the purpose and importance of the deployment by saying "The...most plausible scenario is that the U.S. intends to add one more strategic military base to the hundreds it operates around the world to contain and intimidate independent countries like Iran, Syria, and Lebanon." [15]
Iran, Lebanon and Syria don't possess nuclear weapons or even long-range missiles that can deliver conventional warheads.
Yet the Jerusalem Post wrote in November of 2008 that the X-band missile radar in Israel has a range of 4,300 kilometers (2,900 miles) and "is reported to be capable of tracking targets the size of a baseball from distances of close" to that range. The South Caucasus is only some 1,200 kilometers from Israel and the distance from Tel Aviv to Moscow is 2,641 kilometers. The U.S. missile radar in Israel, then, can monitor most of Southern and Western Russia.
American-Israel missile radar and surveillance is being integrated with NATO-Israeli operations. A report of last December detailed: "Israel has reportedly provided NATO with intelligence on Iran amid US efforts to portray the country's military achievements as a threat.
"Israeli diplomats said Sunday that Israel has contributed to the formation of two intelligence reports prepared by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on 'missile development' and 'the nuclear arms race in the Middle East.'" [16]
Before retiring as secretary general of NATO Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Israel this January and while there remarked that "Israel has been the first country to finalize with NATO, in October 2006, a very detailed individual cooperation program, which had been revised and upgraded last November." [17]
In the same month the Israeli newspaper Haaretz provided more details on the increased cooperation between NATO and Israel in reporting that the latter was assigning a warship for NATO's almost eight-year-old Operation Active Endeavor naval surveillance and interdiction operation in the Mediterranean.
"The request is another example of the increasing cooperation between Israel and NATO. Last week, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi participated in a meeting of army heads at the organization's Brussels headquarters.
"[A] liaison officer from the Israeli Navy has also been stationed at the NATO base in Naples, Italy....NATO ships arrived for maneuvers and visits at the ports of Haifa in April 2008 and Eilat April and October 2007. AWACs early warning planes used by the organization landed at an Israel Air Force base in Lod a year ago." [18]
The September 7 edition of the Jerusalem Post in a feature called "IDF preparing for US missile systems" announced that the Pentagon and the Israeli Defense Forces are to conduct their regular joint Juniper Cobra military exercises next month and that this year's drills, "the most complex and extensive to date," will include "the newly-developed Arrow 2 as well as America's THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) and the ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System." [19]
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