Full cost of European missile defence could run to billions
The Telegraph
By Praveen Swami
November 24, 2010
European states will have to spend billions of pounds over the next 10 years to build a ballistic missile defence shield designed to protect the region from nuclear attack, according to Nato officials.
European and US leaders agreed, at last week’s Nato summit in Lisbon, to spend around £ 170 million on the system.
But that sum, a Nato background document says, will only meet the cost of command-and-control networks which will link future national interceptor missile and radar sites to a separate Europe-based US system designed to protect its troops.
The Pentagon’s April, 2010 acquisitions report placed the cost of a similar US system at $58.01 billion (£36 billion) – after budget constraints forced the killing-off of futuristic components like Boeing 747-mounted lasers. …
Read in full at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8157772/Full-cost-of-European-missile-defence-could-run-to-billions.html
