Dear Members and Friends,
The government of Turkey, which shares a 310 mile-long western border with Iran, has officially agreed to host a United States Army Forward Based AN/TPY-2 X Band Radar that will detect, track, and discriminate ballistic missiles coming from Iran towards Turkey, Southern Europe, Northern Europe, and the homeland of United States of America. The sensing information gathered by this forward-based X band radar deployed in Turkey will provide critical firing solution data that will be processed at the Battle Management Command and Control at the U.S. Air Force Base in Ramstein, Germany; this data will be shared with U.S. operated and deployed ballistic missile defense weapon platforms, such as Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Ships and the Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) in Fort Greely, Alaska as well as in California. The information from this sensor will also be shared with NATO allies, including Turkey, as the forward based AN/TPY-2 radar can successfully track, discriminate, and target any ballistic missile trajectory over Turkish airspace and beyond, limited only by the circumference of the earth.
Basing this remote forward sensor in Turkey brings tremendous capability, in its inherent technology, location, and physics, to create a firing solution much quicker and thereby be able to launch on and engage Iranian ballistic missiles much earlier. This forward based X band radar will expand the defended area of Southern Europe with current U.S. capability and inventory and could potentially help provide a first shot opportunity to defend the U.S. homeland from Iran if the United States builds a fast enough missile and locates it in the Balkans or in Poland, as it has proposed to do by 2020.
A similar U.S. Forward based AN/TPY-2 X band radar is currently deployed in Shariki, Japan, providing tracking, discrimination, and targeting information on North Korean ballistic missiles to similar deployed U.S. missile defense platforms as well as Japanese Aegis BMD Ships to protect Japan and the United States homeland. In addition to the one in Japan, a second U.S. AN/TPY-2 radar is deployed in Israel to assist in defending Israel from ballistic missile threats. This same X band AN/TPY-2 radar is used in a terminal application as the firing control radar for the Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense System (THAAD) interceptors. The United States currently has two THAAD batteries in training and final development and is scheduled to purchase seven more.
The Forward Based AN/TPY-2 radar is expected to be deployed in Turkey before the end of the year, thus completing phase one of President Obama’s four-phase Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) to defend Europe from Iran. This first phase protects parts of Southern Europe and the Balkans from Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles using Aegis BMD ships in the Mediterranean Sea, which are equipped with SM3 Block 1A missiles, and will use the tracking/targeting information from the new radar in Turkey through the command and control at Ramstein Air Base.
The U.S. radar in Turkey falls under U.S. European Combat Command and the U.S. 357th Air and Missile Defense Detachment (AMD-D) located in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
This radar, completing President Obama’s missile defense objectives for 2011, has made Turkey, parts of the Balkans, and Southern Europe safer.
On behalf of our members, we give great respect and appreciation to our NATO ally, Turkey, and its people for having the courage and fortitude to allow the United States to place this invaluable asset in their country, which will help bring more stability and peace to the region.
