Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

novinite.com
March 4, 2010

Bulgarian Non-Government Organizations have united in their demand to hold a referendum about adopting elements of the planned US missile defense shield in the country.

The National Movement “Russophiles”, the Forum “Bulgaria – Russia,” and the Slavic Union in Bulgaria are all against the US defense shield, and say the issue is of prime importance for the national security and needs to be subject to a wide public and institutional debate with clearly stated pros and cons and full transparency.

“Bulgaria must be a foreseeable partner of the EU and NATO, but also of all countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East,” the declaration reads. …

Bulgaria’s Foreign and Defense Ministers further rejected reports that Bulgaria is holding official talks about adopting elements of the shield.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=113846

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ITAR-TASS
February 23

The Moldovan government has supported U.S. plans to base elements of its missile defence shield in Romania. The deployment of missile defence elements in Romania gives an opportunity to increase defence potential of Europe in conditions of a continuing proliferation of nuclear technologies and threats posed by short- and medium-range missiles, said a statement of the Moldovan government issued on Tuesday.

“The government has taken into consideration Romanian-American agreements concerning prospects to deploy in Romania elements of a missile defence system in Europe, as well as its openness for participation of other interested parties with an aim of strengthening general security,” the document said.

It stressed that “each state has the right to decide itself in accordance with its national interests as to the system and mechanisms for ensuring its own security,” it said.

At the same time, the decision of the Romanian authorities to deploy missile defence elements has caused concerns of some influential parties and politicians in Moldova. They believe the emergence of American missiles close to Moldovan borders threatens stability and security in the region, as well as will directly or indirectly influence the process of negotiations on the breakaway Dniester region.

www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14852608&PageNum=0

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New York Times (Associated Press)
February 26, 2010

Russia has serious concerns about U.S. plans to deploy missile interceptors in Romania, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.

The statement from ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko reflected Moscow’s irritation about the U.S. missile defense plans and signaled tensions in relations with Washington.

Nesterenko said that Russia has been annoyed to learn about the move from the media.

”We are worried that we find out about important decisions regarding the U.S. missile defense in Europe from the media rather than our official counterparts in Washington or Bucharest,” Nesterenko told a briefing. …

… other Russian officials, including the nation’s top military officer, recently said the U.S. missile defense plans threaten Russia and have slowed down negotiations on a successor deal to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Russia and the U.S. had hoped to reach agreement before START expired on Dec. 5, but differences persisted. Still, Sergei Prikhodko, President Dmitry Medvedev’s foreign policy adviser, said Friday that the Kremlin believes the treaty could be signed in March or April, Russian news agencies reported.

www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/26/world/AP-EU-Russia-US-Missile-Defense.html

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Wired
By Noah Shachtman
February 12, 2010

The American military has been working since 1996 on a tricked-out 747 that could blast ballistic missiles out of the sky with a ultra-powerful laser. After 14 years of promising “the American people their first light saber,” the Missile Defense Agency finally pulled it off Thursday night at 8:44 p.m

It’s one of a number of steps forward for real-life ray guns in the past year or so. “Solid state” electric lasers finally hit what’s commonly considered battlefield strength. A laser-equipped Air Force gunship disabled a truck with its energy beam. A ground-mounted ray gun blasted drones out of the sky. But all of those energy weapons were weak — and the engineering challenges limited — compared to last night’s shoot-down.

A short-range, Scud-like ballistic missile was launched from an at-sea mobile launch platform near the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center, off of the central California coast. “Within seconds, the Airborne Laser Test Bed [ALTB] used on-board sensors to detect the boosting missile and used a low-energy laser to track the target. The ALTB then fired a second low-energy laser to measure and compensate for atmospheric disturbance. Finally, the ALTB fired its megawatt-class High Energy Laser, heating the boosting ballistic missile to critical structural failure. The entire engagement occurred within two minutes of the target missile launch, while its rocket motors were still thrusting,” according to a statement from the Missile Defense Agency.

Read More (with video coverage of laser blasting ballistic misile): www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/laser-jet-blasts-ballistic-missile-in-landmark-test/#ixzz0fnKfcKKC

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ITAR-TASS
February 2, 2010

The United States seeks to interact with Russia in the missile defence sphere, it is said in the US Ballistic Missile Defence Review (BMDR) released Monday. Such a document has been prepared by the Pentagon for the first time.

The review says that the US administration seeks to interact with Russia in the ballistic missile defence sphere. Together with Russia it is working on a wide agenda focused on the mutual early warning about missile launches, possible technical and operational cooperation.

It is admitted in the review that as of today only Russia and China have the potential for launching a large-scale attack on the US territory with the use of ballistic missiles. However, according to American specialists, such a scenario is very low probable and is not in the focus of the US missile defence plans.

Regarding Russia as an important partner, the document stresses further, the Barack Obama administration is working on the agenda aimed at bringing the two countries’ strategic military doctrines in line with the relations formed between them after the end of the Cold War. It is explained in the document that the United States and Russia are not enemies any longer and that there is no serious threat of war between them. …

Key areas of focus for the BMDR include:

Implementing a phased, adaptive approach for missile defence in Europe, as outlined in the Fact Sheet on US Missile Defence Policy: A “Phased, Adaptive Approach” for Missile Defence in Europe; Providing effective regional missile defences for US forces and allies against short-, medium-, intermediate-range missiles; Providing effective defence of the United States against longer-range missiles; Balancing ballistic missile defence capabilities and investments, accounting for near and long-term threats to the US, allies, and deployed forces; Determining requirements for ballistic missile defence capabilities, as well as the execution and oversight of the US ballistic missile defence program; and The objectives, requirements, and standards for ballistic missile defence program testing and evaluation …

www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14779096&PageNum=0

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BBC News
February 4, 2010

Romania has agreed to host missile interceptors as part of a new US defence shield, its president says.

President Traian Basescu said the plan was approved by the defence council. It still needs parliamentary approval.

The US scrapped a previous missile shield, based in Poland and the Czech Republic, which had infuriated Russia.

Instead the new system would provide better defence from “the emerging threat” of Iranian short- and medium-range missiles, a US official said.

Mr Basescu said the system would “protect the whole of Romania’s territory”, but stressed that it “is not directed against Russia”.

He said Romania will host “ground capabilities to intercept missiles” that would be operational by 2015 if approved by parliament. …

Romania has agreed to host anti-ballistic missile interceptors as part of the administration’s “new missile defence plan… to protect US forward-deployed troops and our NATO allies against current and emerging ballistic missile threats from Iran,” he said.

Mr Obama’s decision to abandon the original plan in September was greeted with enthusiasm in Russia, and came amid attempts to “reset” the relationship between Washington and Moscow.

The anti-ballistic missile shield favoured by former President George W Bush would be replaced by a reconfigured system designed to shoot down short- and medium-range missiles, Mr Obama announced.

He said intelligence suggested Iran was concentrating on shorter-range, not intercontinental, missiles.

The Bush administration plans had infuriated Russia, which threatened to train nuclear warheads on Poland the Czech Republic in response.

The new system is built around ship- and land-based SM-3 missile interceptors.

In October, US Vice-President Joseph Biden visited Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic seeking support for the new system.

Poland has already signed up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/europe/8498504.stm

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NTI: Global Security Newswire
January 26, 2010

Russia remains reluctant to partner with the United States on missile defense, Interfax reported Friday (see GSN, Jan. 22).

“As far as missile defense issues are concerned, we have told the U.S. and NATO that it is necessary to start everything from scratch — to jointly analyze the origin and types of missile proliferation risks and threats,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters.

“We are not ready to simply trust someone else’s analysis and proposals to counter such threats on the basis of this analysis,” Lavrov said. “But they have simply told us: these are the systems we plan to develop, and you will have to contribute your radars. This is not the kind of approach we are ready to support.”

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have tried to involve Moscow in efforts to prepare a European missile shield that would largely be aimed to countering Iranian weapons. The Kremlin loudly objected to the Bush administration plan — which involved fielding 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar installation in the Czech Republic — and has appeared to question a revamped initiative that would use land- and sea-based versions of the Standard Missile 3 system.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have requested a shared assessment of missile proliferation threats, Lavrov noted.

“We are ready for this work. But the result of this joint analysis is unclear to me,” he said. “We will have to take a look at the situation surrounding all missile proliferation risks, not only those posed by Iran” (Interfax/Kiev Post, Jan. 22).

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Wall Street Journal
January 31, 2010

The U.S. is sending more missile defense assets to countries around the Persian Gulf to counter what is seen as a growing threat from Iran, Reuters reports on its Web site Sunday. Nations including Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain will be hosting U.S. anti-missile systems, the report said. In addition, the U.S. Navy is deploying several ships with anti-missile capabilities in and around the region…

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100131-702829.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines (Subscription needed)

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Washington Post
By Robert Burns (Associated Press)
January 31, 2010

As the Obama administration edges toward imposing tougher sanctions on Iran, it has begun upgrading its approach to defending its Persian Gulf allies against potential Iranian missile strikes, officials said Saturday.

The United States has quietly increased the capability of land-based Patriot defensive missiles in several Gulf Arab nations, and one military official said the Navy is beefing up the presence of ships capable of knocking down hostile missiles in flight. …

The moves have been in the works for months and are part of a broader adjustment in the U.S. approach to missile defense, including in Europe and Asia. Details have not been publicly announced, in part because of diplomatic sensitivities in Gulf countries which worry about Iranian military capabilities but are cautious about acknowledging U.S. protection.

The administration will send a review of ballistic missile strategy to Congress on Monday that frames the larger shifts. Attention to defense of the Persian Gulf region, a focus on diffuse networks of sensors and weapons and cooperation with Russia are major elements of the study, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. …

Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command chief who is responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East, mentioned in several recent public speeches one element of the defensive strategy in the Gulf: upgrading Patriot missile systems, which originally were deployed in the region to shoot down aircraft but now can hit missiles in flight. …

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013002145.html

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Digital Journal
January 11, 2010

China’s armed forces successfully tested a system for intercepting missiles in mid-flight on Monday, state media reported.

While China released few technical details of the test, the official Xinhua News Agency said that ”ground-based midcourse missile interception technology” was tested and achieved the expected objective.
”The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country,” Xinhua said.

This test appears to be another step in the intensifying animus brewing between China, and Taiwan. China has repeatedly issued strong warnings against Taiwan after their purchase of United States made arms, including the PAC-3 air defense missiles. China has repeatedly vowed violent means might be necessary in order to bring Taiwan back into the Communist country’s control.

China split with Taiwan during a civil war in 1949 but regularly claims that the self-governing, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory. Beijing has warned of a disruption in ties with Washington if the sale goes ahead, but has not said what specific actions it would take.

China is in the middle of a major technology upgrade for it’s military forces, and missile technology is now considered one of the country’s strengths, and if this test indeed went as well as reported, might put it a step ahead of the United States’ own missile defense technology.

www.digitaljournal.com/article/285473

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