Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed the U.S. proposal for a missile shield that would replace a bulkier version previously planned for Poland.
"I want to stress that Poland views ... the new configuration for the missile shield as very interesting, necessary, and we are ready at the appropriate scale to participate," Tusk said at a news conference with Biden.
But I don't get how this will work:
Under Obama's new missile defense plan, U.S. Navy ships equipped with anti-missile weapons — such as the Navy's Standard Missile-3 — would form a front line of defense in the eastern Mediterranean. Those would be combined with land-based anti-missile systems to be placed on shore in Europe.
I don't understand how that will work. The SM-3 has a radius of 500 kilometers. Putting ships with SM-3s in the eastern Mediterranean would certainly help defend Israel, but how would we protect anybody but Turkey in NATO? To hit missiles coming in to eastern Europe, we'd need ships in all the seas adjacent to Europe (and still have gaps to be filled with land-based sites).
Deploying in the eastern Med., we'd have to hit any missile launched from Iran to eastern Europe as it went up before it reached an altitude above the SM-3's maximum height of 250 kilometers.
I suppose putting ships in the eastern Mediterranean and southeastern Black Sea could provide coverage. But our ships can't linger in Black Sea for long due to treaties. Why not just put land-based SM-3 missiles in Turkey to hit Iranian missiles as they go up?
I just don't see how the SM-3-based defense of Europe is superior to the original BMD plan.
And don't forget that the original BMD plan would let us hit future Iranian ICBMs heading for the US--something the European-based SM-3 can't handle.
Look, I'm no missile expert and I'm just basing this on quick research. I look forward to seeing DOD documents that explain exactly how this plan is to work. Maybe within its assumption parameters it works just fine.
But even then, the new plan still doesn't address the defense of the continental United States from Iran.
UPDATE: This version of the story has this:
Russian retired Gen. Viktor Yesin, the former chief of staff of the Russian military's Strategic Missile Forces, said Russia's reaction to the new missile defense plan will likely be calm unless the U.S. takes what he called provocative moves.
He said Moscow would certainly be angered if the U.S. were to send navy ships with interceptor missiles to the Black Sea or put a missile defense radar in Georgia.
Perhaps I'm not the only one wondering about how ships in the Eastern Med. are sufficient to protect eastern Europe.
