the Alliance and Protection for Europe

NATO Ballistic Missile Defence – a Capability for the Alliance and Protection for Europe by Richard D.F. Froh, NATO – Deputy Secretary General for Armaments, Brussels

In April 2008, at the Bucharest Summit, the Heads of State and Government addressed the need for defences to protect Alliance territory, forces and population centres against the full range of missile threats. In their technical report, the Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) proposed five Architecture Options built around elements of the US Ballistic Missile Defence System in Europe. Today, that report forms a solid basis both for further technical analysis by the Committee of National Armament Directors (CNAD) and for the essential political-military discussions on missile defence ongoing in the Executive Working Group (EWG) and the North Atlantic Council (NAC).

The contribution of Europe At Bucharest, NATO Heads of State and Government drew four essential conclusions regarding missile defences for the Alliance: • the significant contribution of the elements deployed in Europe of the US Ballistic Missile Defence Systems; • the increased threat of the weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles; • the Architecture Options based on the US deployed elements in Europe capable of providing a comprehensive coverage to NATO population centres and territory; and • the need to maintain dialog with Russia.

But discussions on a possible territorial missile defence for the Alliance did not just start this year in Bucharest. In the 2002 Prague Summit, Heads of State and Government agreed the need to examine options for addressing the increasing missile threat to the Alliance in an effective and efficient way through an appropriate mix of political and defence means, including deterrence. Consistent with the indivisibility of Alliance security, NATO’s Heads of State and Government initiated the NATO Missile Defence Feasibility Study (MD FS) to examine options for protecting Alliance territory, forces and population centres against the full range of missile threats. The CNAD, one of NATO’s senior committees, was given the job of conducting the MD FS and told to report back in 2006.

The architecture The Study was conducted in parallel with other NATO activities to counter Weapons of Mass Destruction and their delivery means. To provide a Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) capability to Alliance’s deployed forces, in 2005 the North Atlantic Council created the Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile

Richard D. F. Froh NATO’s Deputy Secretary General since 2007. Born in Toronto, Canada, àn 10 August 1949, Richard (Rick) Froh graduated from the Royal College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario in 1972 with a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering. Over the next 25 years, Rick Froh served in various command and staff appointments in Combat and Construction Engineering units in Canada and in Lahr, Germany. His last appointment was a Military Assistant to the Chairman of the NATO Military Council (1992 -1996). On retiring from the Canadian Forces, Rick Froh assumed the position of Head, Land Armament section at NATO’s Brussels HQ, and on the creation of the Joint Armaments Section in July 2004, he became its head (until 2007), among others responsible for the Active layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Steering Committee and the Missile Defence Project Group

Defence (ALTBMD) Programme Organization. It was tasked to execute a Programme Plan to deliver an Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in 2010 and a Full Operational Capability (FOC) in the 2015-2016 timeframe. The objective of the ALTBMD Organization is to develop and field to the war fighters a verified ALTBMD Architecture composed of a NATO-owned Battlefield Management Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (BMC3I) system which, along with national sensors and lower-layer and upper-layer weapons systems, will form a fully inte grated theatre missile defence system of systems. That Architecture will be able to protect deployed NATO forces against ballistic missiles with a range up to 3,000 km. The BMC3I will provide TMD functions at the Strategic, Operational and Tactical levels through NATO’s Bi-Strategic Command Automated Information System (Bi-SC AIS), the Alliance’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS) and NATO’s General Communications System (NGCS).

NATO Russia council is involved

At the same time, under the auspices of the NATO Russia Council, work to improve both operational and technical interoperability of theatre ballistic missile defense systems was launched. The objective of this work is to ensure that NATO and Russian TMD forces which might be deployed in adjacent Areas of Responsibility during Crisis Response Operations could operate in a coordinated manner. Operational concepts and procedures were developed and assessed during three Command Post Exercises and one Computer Assisted

Exercise. A technical Interoperability Study was undertaken and successfully completed, which proposed options to impro - ve Situational Awareness, operational planning and engagement de-confliction. In light of the current political situation regarding missile defense, this work is progressing slowly. The study results Returning to the MD FS, you will remember the report to NATO Heads of State and Government was due to the Riga Summit in November 2006. The MD FS was the first detailed study ever undertaken by the Alliance to examine options for protecting Alliance territory, forces and population centres against the full range of ballistic missile threats. It concluded that missile defence was technically feasible within the assumptions and limitations of the study. The study report proposed several Architecture Options that could meet NATO’s requirements. Appreciating the good work done in the MD FS, Heads of State and Government in Riga recognised that further information was needed before nations would be ready to take any political decision on a possible missile defence capability for NATO. They wished to know the political and military implications of missile defence for the Alliance and to receive an update on missile threat developments by the time of the 2008 NATO Summit. Significant Change in 2007 Shortly after work started on these Riga tasks, there was a significant change in the situation. In January 2007, the USA announced plans to deploy long-range interceptors and an Xband radar in Europe. As a result, the NATO Defence Ministers, when they met in June 2007, asked for an assessment of the possible political and military implications of the proposed US missile defence system, including its effect on the work tasked at the Riga Summit. Again CNAD was tasked to conduct a technical analysis, this time on the implications of the US plans to a possible, future NATO missile defence system. Throughout 2007, NATO supported transparent dialogue with Russia on missile defence. During several meetings of the NATO Russia Council, reinforced with missile defence experts from nations, Russia, USA, the Czech Republic and Poland exchanged information on their ongoing activities, expressing their views and concerns in a frank and open manner. That brings us back to where we started, at the April 2008 Bucharest Summit. The results of that Summit were very positive, as regards missile defence. As the next step, Heads of State and Government asked for the refinement of the presented options to provide a comprehensive missile defence architecture which would extend coverage to all Allied territory and populations not otherwise covered by the U.S. system. A report is expected at NATO’s 60th Anniversary Summit next year. Additional technical analysis on debris or Command and Control was also requested. The situation today is that work is ongoing within NATO to examine the political, technical, financial and military aspects of missile defence with the aim to provide the comprehensive information needed to support any decision on NATO missile defence at the Strasbourg/Baden-Baden Summit in April 2009. The current global financial crisis, and continuing political debate in member nations, makes it difficult to predict the outcome with regard to missile defence at the next Summit. As was agreed in Bucharest, the ballistic missile threat is real and it is growing. When and how the Alliance will deal with that threat remains an open question, but there are steps which can be taken in the short term which will better prepare the Alliance and its member states to be ready should someone decide to test us with the threat of or an actual ballistic missile attack. These are being developed and discussed now and should be included in the reports on missile defence going to Strasbourg/Baden Baden. Strasbourg-Kehl Summit: The way ahead We have come a long way since the need for missile defences was first discussed in NATO in the early 90s, following the first Gulf War. Today, missile defence concepts and technologies are much better understood, enabling informed debate in political, diplomatic, military, financial, and technical forums within NATO, its member states and more widely. It is not simple, in fact it is “rocket science”, but the good news is that we have some of the best experts available working on the issue. I am confident that in April 2009, at the Strasbourg/Baden Baden Summit, our leaders will have the information they need to make a decision on the political desirability of a NATO missile defence system to protect the territory and population centres of all Allies, most of whom are in Europe. “Consistent with the indivisibility of Alliance security, NATO’s Heads of State and Government initiated the NATO Missile Defence Feasibility Study (MD FS) to examine options for protecting Alliance territory, forces and population centres against the full range of missile threats. ”