Dear Members and Friends,

In between the significant ground breaking ceremony at Redzikowo, Poland on May 13–to build a U.S. missile defense site–and prior to the NATO Summit taking place on July 8–which will declare initial operations of the U.S. missile defense platforms in Spain, Turkey, and Romania to defend NATO territory–MDAA hosted a discussion on, “Addressing the Air and Ballistic Missile Threat to Europe.”

The United States under President Obama have put forth the policy, capability and funding in billions of U.S. Tax dollars for the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) that provides the foundation capability for the upper tier ballistic missile defense of Europe from Iran. This framework involves a forward based TYP-2 Radar hosted by Turkey, four U.S. Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Destroyers based in Spain, two Aegis Ashore Missile Defense sites hosted by Romania and Poland and one Command and Control site hosted by Germany.

With a complex changing environment matched with technological modernization means in power projection, proliferation of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and air threats to NATO Europe from all directions is a reality. NATO is a defensive alliance with the charter to defend its members collectively. The capability that NATO and each of the 28 member countries have to deny and defend their national and collective air space is a fundamental foundation of an effective alliance facing outside threats. It takes much more than the resources of one nation and must be a shared burden of development, acquisition and manning among all 28 nations rather than just the United States and 14 NATO countries doing this mission today. The United States has put forth generously the upper tier capability for the Iranian ballistic missile threat, but tremendous gaps of capability exist in surveillance/ long range discrimination and lower tier atmosphere missile and air defense for NATO against threats from other directions and entities.

On June 14, we brought together representatives from the Embassies of Denmark, Germany, Poland, Romania, and Spain at the Senate Dirksen Building to discuss the air and missile defense capabilities of NATO-Europe (Click here for a link to MDAA’s event page with a livestream and pictures from the roundtable). In the face of a shifting strategic environment in Europe, each representative discussed their country’s air and missile defense capabilities and future plans.

Introductions and a few quotes from each of the five NATO country representatives:

Denmark: 

Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of MDAA: “Denmark is one of the oldest partners. They are a small country but they really punch above their weight in their contribution to missile defense…Denmark is one of our oldest partners. They first put up the Early Warning Radar in 1953. They converted that in 1960 to a ballistic missile defense radar up in Greenland, in Thule. It was upgraded in 2006 to become a ballistic missile defense Upgraded Early Warning Radar. It’s in place, it’s been protecting the United States of America and the North American continent for many years. In addition to that, they are looking at putting one of their ships, their frigate ships, they are looking at long-range discrimination capability to contribute to the upper-tier defense of Europe.”

Major General Henrik Dam, Defense, Military, and Air Attaché, Embassy of Denmark: “The development of ballistic missiles by rouge nations is very worrying.  It can be a game changer when we talk about BMD when have a threat that we cannot locate the same way that we can in most instances. That concerns both Europe and the U.S. We also have to remember that the Ballistic Missile threat is not always in the nuclear dimension.”

Germany: 

Riki Ellison: “Germany has the most lower tear capability in all of Europe. They were one of the key components and leaders in going to Turkey when Turkey requested Ballistic Missile Defense. They are also a leaders in testing and have done some phenomenal testing in Crete.”

Colonel Bernhard Altersberger, Air Attaché and Assistant Defense Attaché, Embassy of Germany: “On the lower level of the ground-based Missile Defense side we coordinate with fourteen NATO members…when you look at the geography, there are partners who are not NATO members, but they are important players.”

Poland:

Riki Ellison: “Poland has the most courage in doing what they did and hosting the Aegis Ashore site…[they] will be able to cover most of Europe with their capabilities. [The Polish have been] aggressively modernizing and trying to refit their defense capabilities, and they are a very strong partner.”

Mr. Maciej Pisarski, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Poland: “Our system is proof that NATO is a lively, vivid, and responsive organization that is able to adapt itself to the ever changing security environment.”

Romania:

Riki Ellison: “We have an Aegis Ashore in Romania. This past December we simulated what would happen if Iran shot a missile, and using the radar that was in Hawaii, the TPY-2 Radar and the Aegis Ashore site in Kauai, we were able to iron out the capabilities of an SM-3 missile. It’s an amazing piece of technology and it will have the capability to defend mostly all of Romania, Greece, and a little bit of Turkey.”

Mr. Robert Dumitrescu, Counselor, Embassy of Romania: “The ballistic missile defense system we have in place is exclusively to protect nations from ballistic missile threats that originate outside of Europe, and it will be used in accordance with the U.N. Charter on self-defense.”

Spain:

Riki Ellison: “Spain has been a great partner and, as part of EPAA Phase One, hosted four Aegis BMD ships at Rota, Spain. They are the closest of any of the NATO nations of gaining an upper tier ballistic missile defense capability. They also replaced the Germans in Turkey with their PAC-2 [batteries] and have done a great job there as well.”

Mr. Jose Hernero Gomez, Counselor, Embassy of Spain: “Our relationship with the U.S. is so good that it is so boring. One very essential point is that the ballistic missile threat is a continuously evolving threat…There is a consensus in NATO that this is a 360 degree threat, that is why the Americans have missile defense ships at Rota.”