In a major policy reversal, U.S. President Barack Obama has scuttled plans to build a massive ground-based missile defense system based in the Czech Republic and Poland that the Bush administration intended to counter the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.
Instead, Obama favors shorter-range ground- and sea-based missiles positioned closer to Iran.
The new system - which Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says will be "globally deployable ... globally exportable" - initially will center on ground-based Patriot and Aegis-ship-based Standard Missiles-3 (SM-3s), networked command-and-control systems and improved sensors. It will mimic the ship-based defense system now used in the joint defense of South Korea and Japan, he said.
Worldwide, the system eventually will integrate the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missile, or THAAD, slated this year for operational deployment to Europe, and the Ground-Based Interceptor missile based at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Cartwright said.
It also would include construction of a directional X-band radar somewhere in Europe, most likely in the Caucasus region, Cartwright said.
Now off the table are plans to build the politically sensitive system that Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed to President George W. Bush in 2006 that called for construction of a complex radar station in the Czech Republic and the installation of 10 silo-based Ground-Based Interceptor missiles in Poland.
"This new approach will provide capability sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program," Obama said at a Sept. 17 news conference. "It is more comprehensive than the previous program, it deploys capabilities that are proven and cost-effective, and it sustains and builds upon our commitment to protect the U.S. homeland against long-range ballistic missile threats. And it ensures and enhances the protection of all our NATO allies."
In a subsequent Pentagon news conference, Gates, who recommended the change along with the Joint Chiefs, cited a two-part rationale for the shift, saying that the intelligence community's 2006 assessment of the Iranian threat had changed and that analysts now believe the threat from Iran's short- and medium-range missiles, such as the Shahab-3, "is developing more rapidly than previously projected."
This poses an "increased and more immediate threat to our forces on the European continent, as well as to our allies," Gates said, while the threat of potential Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile capability "has been slower to develop."
In addition, Gates said, U.S. missile defense technology has improved, particularly the ability to counter short- and medium-range missiles.
Obama said he had called the prime ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic, and added that Michèle Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, was visiting the two nations on today.
Based on brief accounts he has received of Flournoy's discussions, Obama said Czech and Polish officials "have been reasonably positive about this."
Russia had long opposed the 2006 U.S. plan, saying it would undermine its strategic nuclear posture. Asked if the cooled relations that resulted were a factor in formulating the new policy, Gates said the Russians "are probably not going to be pleased that we are continuing with missile defense efforts in Europe."
But two elements of the new plan should allay those fears, Gates said. The new sensor plan will not have the capability to look deep into Russia, as the previous omni-directional system could have.
The X-band radar is directional and, Cartwright said, "it'll be very clear that it is pointing south towards Iran."
And the SM-3, with its kinetic warhead, is a weapon that Gates said the Russians "simply cannot, at least rationally, argue bears any kind of a threat to Russia."
Gates also suggested that a Russian radar deployed in the south of the country, the Armavir, could be integrated into the U.S. network as a hedge against Iranian missile launches.
The overriding U.S. motivation for the change, Gates said, was "almost exclusively" driven by the new intelligence assessments and improvements in technology.
Russia has yet to issue an official reaction. But its NATO ambassador voiced satisfaction over the change, with the BBC on Thursday quoting Dmitry Rogozin as saying: "It's like having a decomposing corpse in your flat and then the undertaker comes and takes it away."
Congressional Republicans were quick to denounce the plan. "The administration apparently has decided to empower Russia and Iran at the expense of the national security interests of the United States and our allies in Europe," said Rep. Howard McKeon of California, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. "Just this past April, while in Prague, the president reiterated his support for U.S. missile defenses in Europe as long as missile threats persist."
Anticipating that reaction, Gates said that "those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting the reality of what we are doing. ... I believe this new approach provides a better missile defense capability for our forces in Europe, for our European allies and eventually for our homeland than the program I recommended almost three years ago. It is more adapted to the threat we see developing and takes advantage of new technical capabilities available to us today."
The first phase of the new plan has already begun, with the deployment to the Eastern Mediterranean of Aegis ships equipped with the SM-3 Block 1 Mod A missile system complementing the Patriot systems already deployed.
This system, along with the integration of linked command-and-control systems and a combination of upgraded terrestrial Cold War-era radars and other sensors, will be fully in place by 2011, Cartwright said.
It will require the presence of two to three Aegis ships in the Mediterranean and North Sea with additional ships being surged as necessary, he said.
The Pentagon's proposed budget includes plans for "a sufficient number of ships to allow us to have a global deployment of this capability on a constant basis with a surge capacity to any one theater at a time," he said.
The fiscal 2010 budget asks Congress for funding to convert six additional ships to Aegis capability.
"We'll have this debate as we submit the '11 budget," Cartwright said.
Technical improvements are planned out to 2020, Cartwright said, including SM-3 upgrades that eventually will include a "substantial capability" to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from Iran, he said.
The overall research and development effort will total about $3.5 billion, to which the Japanese government has already contributed $1 billion, Cartwright said. ■
E-mail: bmmichael@militarytimes.com.
The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is ready to test a few components that soldiers may have in their hands by 2010.
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