April 11, 2006 :: News
Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation spoke at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, on April 4 about the role of the State Department in promoting international missile defense cooperation. In addition to listing the State Department’s efforts to negotiate such arrangements, she explained the strategic rationale behind such cooperation.
Since the U.S. almost never fights alone, cooperation with allies and coalition partners to develop and deploy missile defenses allow us to make effective use of the technological marvels produced by MDA. The most advanced of our allies will bring missile defense-related sensors and interceptors to future combined operations. The use of overseas locations for sensors, ship basing, and potentially interceptors is already important to plans for the defense of the U.S. homeland, and will be important for protecting our allies and friends.
Such missile defense cooperation is vital in its own right, for the defensive benefits it provides in protecting our populations and territory from attack by rogue states armed with ballistic missiles. But missile defense is also an important nonproliferation tool, because the more defenses spread, the more unrewarding and unattractive it will be for would-be missile proliferators to invest in delivery systems which are unlikely to hit their targets. Missile defenses, in other words, deter missile proliferation. Should deterrence of these programs and their use fail, and if a rogue state launched ballistic missiles perhaps tipped with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons we would view missile defense as the “terminal phase counterproliferation.”
DeSutter added that cooperation is currently being conducted or discussed with Japan, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Israel, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, and other nations. Joint efforts include research and development, production, testing, training, and simulation exercises. (Article)
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