March 1, 2011 :: AP :: News
The guided missile cruiser USS Monterey will leave Virginia next week to start a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea in order toformally inauguratethe first phase of the Obama administration's Phased Adaptive missile defense approach in Europe. This first stage of Aegis-guided sea-based interceptors will be followed up by the placement of land-based radars before the year is up. The next phase will consist of a seven-year rolling installmentof ground-based interceptors in Romania and then Poland.
The plan has been endorsed by NATO, but has run into snags lately, partiallyin the wake of a conflict of understanding over the New START treaty. Russia has been usinglanguage in the treaty's preambleto leverage joint control over the European missile shield, even going so far as to threaten movingoffensive nuclear groups further west in its territory. The U.S. has proposed the sharing of data as an alternative, but Russia remainsrecalcitrant.
Russia regards any long-range missile defense stationed in EasternEurope as a direct threat to itsnuclear deterrent. As ground-based interceptors like the SM-3 get more advanced, they could conceivably be used to take out long-range ICBMs instead of merely the medium-rangeIranian threats that are to be, for now, the main focus of the European missileshield. (Article)
