THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
A European BMD architecture must be transparent and take the issue of Russia on board
The role of Europe in NATO’s Ballistic Missile Defence by Bernd Kreienbaum, Execrutive Advisor IABG for Defence and Security, Brussels
In March 1983, US President Ronald Reagan launched the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Initiative called the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), which became known as “Star Wars”. 30 years and about US$ 200 billion later, BMD has reached Europe as a NATO programme. Since 2002 the US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) alone has spent US$ 90 billion on BMD and is continuing to spend more than $8 billion per year for the development of land-, sea-, and space-based sensors to track missiles, as well as ballistic missile interceptors and a battle management system. Now, the overarching questions for Europe are: what is the price Europe has to pay for building a European BMD capability in the next two decades and will it become a “buy American” solution only, or is there a chance for European technologies and true participation? At the 2010 Lisbon Summit the NATO Heads of State and Government (HOSG) agreed on a risk perception focused on Iran, without naming that Islamic state, and defining BMD in a “top down” process as an “essential military mission”1 and as a new Alliance focus. The NATO Secretary General even declared BMD to be a “game changer” in the relations and cooperation with Russia. The objective of the NATO BMD programme is to defend Europe indivisibly by intercepting missiles of all ranges at all stages of flight. At the 2012 Chicago Summit a first operational BMD Interim Capability was declared and praised. Certainly more a political manifestation than one of operational relevance, it shows that a BMD capability for Europe is under way. This is underlined by the fact that NATO has just started the process for releasing, in autumn 2013, some €68 million for a contract award to BMD System Engineering and Integration (SE&I).
NATO’s objective is to defend Europe indivisibly Before Lisbon the political argumentation was based on the assumption that the lion’s share of BMD would be paid for by the US through its Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA), building in four steps on sea- and land-based AEGIS systems with SM-3 interceptors of different types as a national contribution to the European BMD System. This US contribution would provide, in steps, full “upper layer” coverage (exo-atmospheric interceptors) indivisibly for all European populations, territory and forces. NATO would pay a common amount of no more than €200 million in addition to the ongoing Theatre BMD Pro-
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Bernd Kreienbaum Mr Kreienbaum is the Brussels-based representative of IABG, the German Technology Think Tank and Simulation & Integration Company. He studied Electronic, Radar & Communication Engineering. He served previously in various positions in the German Air Force and Ministry of Defence. Since 2010, alongside his US counterpart, BG (ret) Bob Dehnert (Raytheon), he has been the European coChair of the NATO Industrial Advisory Study Groups (SG-151/172) on industrial and technology BMD aspects. He served for nine years, up to January 2007, in the NATO International Staff, Defence Investment Division, as Deputy Head Joint Armaments Section and Special Programme Coordinator, covering also NATO’s major Missile Defence and Theatre Missile Defence activities. At the AIAA Multinational Missile Defence Conference in September 2007 he received the prestigious David R. Israel Award for his meritorious achievements in Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence during his tenure at NATO.
gramme, while the European partners may contribute with some “lower layer” (Patriot/MEADS) and gap-filling capabilities on a voluntary basis, and that’s it.
Reality and consequences This strategy worked well to get the programme launched, but in the meantime there is clearly a change of awareness and some political and military illusions are fading away. The US PAA will certainly remain a key element and a welcome contribution to the European BMD capability, but it does not provide indivisible protection for the whole of Europe and is limited against longer-range and faster missiles, as well as being far from robust in military terms. The recent cancellation of PAA Phase IV – addressing some longer-range intercept capabilities – was evidence that an “adaptive approach” is not a commitment and that it is vulnerable to political changes and budget constraints. The argument that dropping this phase would make no difference for Europe is factitious. If North Korea’s ICBM2 are a threat for the US, then the same is true for Europe. If we assume that PAA IV would have included some kind of ICBM defence capability, then its termination is taking this capability away from Europe. What are the key issues? 1. For the moment the architecture of the future European BMD system with the US PAA and beyond is undefined and consequently the costs are unknown, not only for Europe but also
