MISSILE DEFENSE PROPOSAL FOR EUROPE

1. Introduction

Some of the world’s most dangerous and unpredictable regimes either have already acquired, or are attempting to acquire, weapons of mass destruction. These regimes are also developing and/or acquiring ballistic missiles of increasing ranges, payloads, lethality, and sophistication as a means of delivery. In the future, these regimes could use these asymmetric weapons to pursue their objectives through force, coercion, and/or intimidation as they have done in the past.

Today’s ballistic missile threat from potentially hostile states is fundamentally different from Cold War era threats and risks. In response, the United States is fi elding limited and purely defensive capabilities. In our comprehensive strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction, missile defense is just one element of a multi-faceted approach, which includes diplomacy, export controls, threat reduction assistance, nonproliferation regimes, and counter-proliferation programs. At the same time, missile defense is our ultimate insurance policy if these other elements of our strategy fail. History has taught us that, despite our best efforts, the free world will be challenged by military surprises as well as failures in diplomacy, intelligence, and deterrence. Given this reality, missile defenses have become highly desirable because they both reinforce deterrence and hedge against its failure.

Because of the expanding ballistic missile threat, it is essential that we develop and deploy missile defenses capable of protecting not only the United States and our deployed forces, but also our friends and allies. Trans-atlantic security is indivisible. We have learned from experience that decoupling our defenses from Europe is very much against the interests of the United States and our European allies. If Europe is not secure, the United States is not secure. To ensure our common security, we need defenses stationed and operational in Europe before a threat fully emerges. For this reason, negotiations are currently underway to locate up to ten silo-based long-range missile defense interceptors in Poland and a midcourse tracking and discrimination radar in the Czech Republic. These defensive interceptors contain no explosives, and destroy attacking reentry vehicles by kinetic energy, that is, a body-on-body collision outside of the atmosphere between the kinetic kill interceptor and the reentry vehicle.