Seven years ago on March 6, 2009, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton representing our President, Barack Obama, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, Switzerland with the purpose to reset our relationship with Russia. Two months later on May 9, 2009, President Obama made his non-nuclear proliferation position, reinforced the Russia relationship reset and stated that we would not build missile defense in Europe if the threat from Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile activity was eliminated. This speech by President Barack Obama at Prague provided the impetuous for his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize three months later.
Today, at the end of President Obama’s Presidential term, we find a world that has a nuclear proliferated North Korea with both South Korea and Japan on the verge of nuclear breakout in response, a reversal of the Russian relationship that has become dangerous and overtly aggressive, and our nation has spent $5 billion to put missile defense systems in Europe for NATO that is specifically designed to defend against a nuclear ballistic missile capable Iran – who has signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the United States to not develop nuclear weapons.
Since its takeover of eastern Ukraine in 2014, Russia has conducted six major exercises, to include snap exercises with 350,000 troops on their borders with NATO. Russia has deployed (reported on October 7, 2016) an anti-access and area-denial capability with its Iskander SS-26 missiles in Kaliningrad that extends to Berlin, all three of the Baltic States, majority of Poland, parts of Sweden, and parts of Denmark.
In response to the Russian resurgence in statements from the Wales NATO Summit in 2014, NATO declared the creation of a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) of brigade level – around 5,000 troops – to incorporate within the established NATO Response Force (NRF) comprising of air, land, maritime and Special Operations Forces. In further response to the continued escalating Russian resurgence, demand from the Eastern European NATO members – to include the Baltic States – in statements from the Warsaw NATO Summit this summer, NATO announced the Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) to strengthen deterrence and defense posture for the Baltic states and Poland. Four NATO battalion sized elements of around 1,000 troops, from four NATO contributing countries, will be placed in the four most threatened NATO nations: Poland with an American Battalion, Estonia with a British Battalion, Latvia with a Canadian Battalion, and Lithuania with a German Battalion. This past week in Wiesbaden, Germany, the United States Army Chief of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, met with 38 Allied Countries Army Chiefs of Staff to include NATO on shifting from Assurance to Deterrence.
This NATO deterrence driven by Russian actions and is based upon the VJTF and the EFP, demonstrating in training and exercising – speed of assembly and execution of mission command and control. Today completes one of the speed of assembly exercises into Capu Midia Range off the coast of the Black Sea in Romania, which moved a U.S. Patriot air and missile defense battery from the 5-7 ADA Battalion in Kaiserslautern, Germany through Austria and Hungary into Romania. (Link to Reuters article).
Air and Missile Defense is critical for the NATO VJTF in its assembly areas and with its mobile maneuvering brigades and the EFP with its battalions in those four most threatened nations, as they all must be defended from air breathing and ballistic missile threats to be effective in their deterrent role. Russia has demonstrated tremendous Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) capability in its Ukraine operations and continues to demonstrate, in combat, its modernized cruise missile capability in Syria. There is a tremendous capability gap in Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) for the maneuver forces of the United States Army and its NATO counterparts in Europe today.
Because of this overt capability gap, the next United States President and NATO Heads of State must seriously consider closing that gap and adapting the current EPAA for cost saving and existing capability to provide both air and missile defense for the VJTF assembly areas and maneuvering forces in Poland, the Baltic States, and surrounding Eastern NATO Allies.
The European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) missile defense systems are restricted to only missile defense against Iran are deployed and fully operational (Article), are primarily based off of the world’s best air and missile defense platform created – the United States Baseline-9 Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Ship that can defend large areas, 360 degrees with a range of hundreds of miles on its own and can leverage other Aegis BMD Ship Platforms to exponentially increase the air and missile defense area. This system in Europe needs to do what it does best – integrated air and missile defense for anti-access and area denial of critical large areas of Europe from any and all air and missile threats to NATO Europe.
The EPPA beyond its adaptation of bringing forward robust and extended Air Defense with engage and launch on remote enabled by overhead sensors, NIFCA and baseline 9 is a forward deployment of a THAAD Battery to both defend and provide additional much needed sensor for the gap of capability the EPAA does not defend in Europe.
MDAA was honored to be in Prague, Czech Republic this past week listening to our NATO Eastern European Allies of Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden – a Non-NATO member – present their direct concerns for protecting and defending their territories against Russian air threats.
The core of Deterrence for NATO is demonstrated credible capability, speed and most of all political will.
We can do this
