"This would make Greece, Bulgaria or Romania contenders - and with Biden making the recent visit to Bucharest as opposed to Sofia or Athens in the context of discussions on security architecture, Romania appears to be a more likely location."
It continued: "By 2011 the Pentagon will roll out its naval anti-ballistic missile system on cruisers and destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. These ships will be equipped with Lockheed Martin's Aegis system, containing anti-aircraft and anti-missile radar and weaponry. The ships contain mid to long range SM-3 missiles."
An extension of the ship-based interceptor missiles into the Black Sea may follow because "The [Romanian] Constanta port and naval facilities, plus Bulgaria with its Burgas port, could be good platforms for a military naval base...." [21]
As an indication of how the bases can be used, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 Agence France-Presse reported that "An air of secrecy surrounds the arrival of thousands of US military personnel at the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta in preparation for a war on Iraq.
"Ten giant Hercules C-130 transport aircraft and four H-53 helicopters can be seen parked at a military airbase adjacent to the local civilian airport."
A Romanian source was quoted at the time as saying, "We are NATO's advance post in the east." [22]
The base in question is the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base north of Constanta, the main headquarters of the Pentagon's Joint Task Force-East.
Russian Response.
When it first became evident that the U.S. was moving into and taking over four military bases in Romania (and three in Bulgaria) for training and deployment for wars in the east, in 2007 then Russian President Vladimir Putin said, "[A] new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania....What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this." [23]
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed the concern, stating "Russia finds it hard to understand some decisions of NATO like, for example, the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania." [24]
When Romania's President Basescu revealed U.S. missile shield plans for his nation on February 4, Lavrov again spoke out and said "We expect the United States to provide an exhaustive explanation, taking into account the fact that the Black Sea regime is regulated by the Montreux Convention," [25] which prohibits warships of non-Black Sea nations from staying in the Black Sea longer than 21 days and bans the deployment of outside nations' aircraft carriers.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO, was more detailed and more direct in his assessment. "Maybe it's against Iran, but that same system can be targeted against any other country, including Russia's strategic nuclear potential. The U.S. is using Iran's actions to globalize its system of missile defense....Our military shouldn't believe some promises or intentions. We need to go on the assumption that a foreign military potential is approaching our borders." [26]
On February 5 the Russian Information Agency Novosti website quoted the editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, Retired Colonel Igor Korotchenko, who said "Russia must warn Romania that if the elements of the U.S. missile shield are placed in the country they will become a target of Russia's preventive missile strikes."
He also warned "that with ship-based SM-3s in the North, Black and
Mediterranean seas, and mobile land-based SM-3s in Central Europe the western borders of Russia would be surrounded by U.S. missile interceptors by 2015." [27]
At the same time Pentagon chief Robert Gates arrived in Turkey for two days of meetings with fellow NATO defense chiefs and it was reported that he would "urge European allies...to inject more funding into NATO with a focus on Afghanistan and priorities such as missile defense...." [28]
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