A Look at Eastern European Missile Defense

We all know that the current Russian administration doesn't like proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe. In a previous post (Former Prime Minister of Russia on the Eastern European Missile Shield), we've established that even pro-western Russian moderates such as Yegor Gaidar are "extremely worried about this [ABM] program". But what is the government's official stance on this program? In May of 2007, two proponents of this policy were called before Congress and asked to explain if the United States and Europe need a European missile defense system. Together they presented the following argument:

The world’s most threatening and unstable regimes can develop and deploy lethal nuclear arsenals and the ballistic missiles to deliver them to Europe and even the United States ... The Intelligence Community estimates that Iran could develop long-range missiles capable of reaching all of Europe and the United States by 2015 if it chooses to do so ... The missile defense system that we are proposing to place in Europe—in cooperation with Poland and the Czech Republic—would provide an extra layer of protection against possible missile attacks not only to the United States, but also to NATO allies and other European friends ... We cannot have U.S. security decoupled from that of our NATO allies. We cannot take a unilateral or isolationist approach to security.

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The 10 interceptors we hope to field in Poland and the radar in the Czech Republic would have little or no capability against Russia’s large strategic offensive force, which could overwhelm the U.S. system’s limited number of interceptors regardless of their location. In theoretical one-on-one engagements, U.S. interceptors located in Europe would have little or no capability to intercept Russian ICBMs launched at the United States as the U.S. interceptors are too slow to catch Russian ballistic missiles.

There is no reason to believe that traditional nuclear deterrence would not work both ways in relations between Europe and Iran. The real problem is that Europe is not sufficiently motivated to take military action against Iran, especially after the 2007 United States National Intelligence Estimate which stated with high confidence that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.

In addition, these plans made unilaterally with Poland and the Czech Republic because NATO was not willing to collectively sign onto the process. This unilateral action left the United States holding the bill for the cost of the system. But though the fiscal cost is significant, the diplomatic cost pales in comparison. It needlessly served to worsen US relations with Russian and led to Russia suspending its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (-BBC News).


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Full transcript of the hearing:
Do the United States and Europe need a missile defense system? : joint hearing before the Subcommittee on Europe and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, first session, May 3, 2007.