Hamas-backed militants continued to fire rockets into Israel on Monday, but the U.S. European Command military personnel stationed in the Jewish state are well removed from the areas being targeted, a EUCOM spokesman said.
Since September, a EUCOM team that includes soldiers, airmen and Marines has been working to help Israel set up an early warning radar system aimed at providing protection in the event of a missile attack from Iran.
...
In November, the U.S. radar was in its final round of tests. The system is reportedly capable of tracking a baseball-size object from a distance of 2,900 miles. It is expected to help Israel by enabling it to more rapidly activate its missile-defense system in the event of an attack. At the time, a EUCOM official said the radar should be operational by mid-December.
Such a radar wouldn’t be helpful against the short-range rockets being used by Hamas-backed militants.
I'll be offline for the next several days, so in the meantime let me thank you again for visiting my relatively new blog and wish you a Merry Christmas.
So grab an egg nog and enjoy this "remastered" Aegis test from last year. The MDA version was raw --- as in, the first 30 seconds were literally a rainbow test pattern with BEEEEEEEP blaring from the speakers. And the interceptor footage played before the target launches. Yuck.
Anyway, here's the new and improved version of this historic test --- the first dual-intercept of a salvo of incoming hostile missiles:
Once housing the largest ICBM in US inventory, Silo 571-1 is the last remaining Titan II silo --- and now a very cool museum:
At one point, there were 54 Titan missile silos in the United States, concentrated in Arizona, Arkansas, and Kansas.Now, this site, which was first armed in 1963 and stayed on duty until 1982, is the only one left; all the rest have been abandoned and destroyed, the result of technological progress and arms-control agreements.But this one, known to the Air Force as Silo 571-7, has been preserved nearly exactly as it was.The missile, of course, is non-functional, the warhead removed (a small rectangular hole has been cut in the nose just to prove it is inactive).The massive, 760-ton silo closure door — designed to protect the Titan from a nearby nuclear hit — is left permanently half-open.
York also snapped some pretty neat pics, including some of the launch control room.
Of course, this isn't just a travelogue --- York gives us a glimpse at what the outgoing President has to say about missile defense:
In an Oval Office interview a few weeks ago, I asked President Bush for his reaction to Obama’s pledge quoted at the beginning of this article.He said he will wait to see what an Obama administration actually does, but he was emphatic in support of missile defense. “This system has developed way beyond where it stood in 2001,” the president said, “to the point where we were able to take a tumbling satellite out of orbit with one shot off an Aegis cruiser. So I hope that when people fully analyze the capabilities and understand that there is an important check against certain regimes’ ambitions…[that they realize] a missile defense system is a tool, a part of a series of tools a president can be able to use to effect the advance of liberty for the sake of peace.”
Here is Obama's infamous statement on missile defense and nuclear weapons:
After watching that naive spectacle, where in the world would the Russians get the idea that our new President could possibly be intimidated by hardcore nuclear sabre rattling?
Russia's increasingly spastic and unpredictable response to the United States' and NATO's plans for European missile defense reaches fever pitch. A mere 4 months ago, Russia assured the world that there would be "no return of nuclear weapons to Belarus."
MOSCOW - Russia may place nuclear-capable Topol missiles in neighbouring Belarus as a response to a controversial U.S. missile shield in eastern Europe, a Russian defence ministry source was quoted as saying Tuesday.
"If the United States continues to bring elements of its strategic forces closer to Russia’s borders, including missile-defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, which are aimed at the reduction of our nuclear deterrent, mobile Topol complexes could be placed in Belarus," the source told Interfax news agency.
US missile defenses are not "elements of its strategic forces." Hell, they aren't even tactical forces. The Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) planned for Poland have no warheads, nuclear or conventional. They loft a kinetic kill vehicle into space which manuevers into the path of an incoming ballistic missile. No explosives are used, just the sheer trauma of two refrigerator-sized objects smashing into each other at 15,000 miles per hour (like this). GBI's cannot be used for any other mission.
Why would nuke-free Belarus even consider participating in Russia's sabre rattling?
Returning nuclear weapons to Belarus would be a major turnaround for Moscow, which removed its last nuclear missiles from the ex-Soviet republic in 1996, several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The report came one day after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow and reached a deal on the deliveries of Russian gas to Belarus.
Oh. While Russian petrodollars are rapidly evaporating with the collapse of oil prices, their other energy weapon --- natural gas --- retains its potency when pressuring former Soviet neighbors and squishy EU members.
And just in case you didn't get the message, Moscow reminds us of its other recent missile deployment threat:
A top Russian official reiterated the threat on Tuesday, stressing that the Iskanders would not be deployed in Kaliningrad - which borders the European Union - if the United States backed down on its missile shield.
"If there will be no third position area of missile defence, there will be no Iskanders in Kaliningrad," Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said in an interview published in the Izvestia daily.
Nuclear Topols to Belarus, Iskanders to Kaliningrad --- it gets a little confusing. Here's a quick video I put together:
In its attempts to derail European missile defense, Russia has employed a variety of carrots and sticks. Well, mainly sticks. And dragging Belarus back into the nuclear club is the biggest stick so far.
"By 2015-2020, the Strategic Missile Forces will have absolutely new missile systems with improved combat characteristics, which will be able to resolve any problems, including combating enemy missile defense systems," Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
Russia will stop developing some strategic weapons if the United States drops plans for a missile shield in Europe, Interfax news agency quoted the commander of Russia's strategic missile forces as saying on Friday.
"If Americans give up plans to deploy the third positioning region and other elements of the strategic missile defense system then certainly we will adequately respond to it," Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov said.
If the Russians truly believe that European missile defense is a direct threat to their strategic nuclear deterrent (it is not), then by all means upgrade said deterrent to sooth your fears, comrades. And spend, spend, spend those rubles:
The remarks may be another step in Moscow's efforts to build ties with the incoming U.S. administration but also reflect difficulties Russia faces in financing its ambitious military programs at a time of global economic crisis.
Oh. Our bad.
"Those wily Americans --- if their Pentagon is not forcing us into a military spending cage match with scary missile defense, then their crafty financiers are engineering a global economic meltdown with busted credit default swaps and untenable mortgage lending practices!"
Defense contractor Raytheon Co. said Thursday that the United Arab Emirates has ordered a Patriot missile defense system worth $3.3 billion.
The order, which came through the Defense Department, is for batteries used to shoot down incoming missiles in their last stages of flight. The system includes power generators, radar, and interceptor missiles made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp.
It is the latest purchase of missile defense equipment by U.S. allies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Israel and Kuwait have all bought Patriot and other missile shield systems, largely to protect against missile threats from nations such as Iran.
Missile threats from where? I-what?
UPDATE: NPR has a report on this UAE deal (audio here), including input from Sec. Gates and Gen. Petraeus on the need for missile defense in the Middle East.
Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, chairwoman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, visited the two countries Dec 16–17. “I am unwilling to dig holes in Poland and fill them up with untested rockets,” she told journalists before her trip, adding that she would prefer to concentrate more on defense against short- and middle-range missiles.
The "untested rockets" Tauscher refers to are simpler 2-stage versions of the 3-stage Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) currently deployed in Alaska and California. The Polish interceptors are just the upper two stages of the very same interceptor that successfully destroyed an ICBM warhead earlier this month.
Yes, it is true that we have not flown the 2-stage version all by itself --- but the 3-stage GBI has indeed flown several times, shedding its complex multiple stages every time. We have repeatedly tested a much more sophisticated rocket than the one Tauscher eagerly discounts as untested.
In essence, they said, Obama will comply with legislation Congress approved this fall to require testing and certification that the interceptors have “a high probability of working in an operationally effective manner” before they can be deployed.
In Prague, Tauscher and Lamborn met with Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra. They said in a written statement Thursday that they told him Obama “would be guided by the legislative conditions that were imposed by the Congress, particularly the requirement to fully test the long-range interceptors.”
So consider this your first heads-up: the Polish interceptor base is likely dead for the foreseeable future. Change you can believe in...
All is not lost, though. While she may be woefully ignorant of the nature of GBIs in Poland, Tauscher at least sees the value in deploying the large X-Band missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic:
While the missile interceptor system has not been tested sufficiently, the radar has proved itself by many years of service, [Schneider] said.
Due to the radar’s compatibility with other missile systems, such as the NATO naval-based Aegis system against short- and middle-range rockets, the radar could fulfill its role without the Polish missile interceptors. “The two systems can be separated and built in stages,” said Schneider.
Czech diplomats are not expecting any radical change in U.S. policy concerning the radar, he added.
"The sides are expected to express their attitudes to the creation and deployment of the U.S. missile defense systems, both on a regional and global scale," the source said.
"China shares Russia's viewpoint on the U.S. plans and practical actions aimed at deploying its ABM systems in Eastern Europe, which threaten security and stability in the world," the source said.
"The meeting will also address the creation of a regional missile defense system in Asia and the Pacific involving the U.S, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan," the source said.
"China is extremely negative about the creation of such a system, especially in the light of Taiwan's joining it and the contracts for the supply of U.S. radar stations to Taibei."
Same song, different dance --- just swap "Iran" with "North Korea" as the threat we're worried about ... not Russia OR China.
"We had 880 tanks in the Kaliningrad region, and we are pulling virtually all of them out," Makarov said, adding that "this unilateral move clearly demonstrates that Russia has no plans to attack other countries and is not pursuing an expansionist policy," the Russian news agency said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last month threatened to deploy Iskander short-range missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave as a response to U.S. moves to establish a missile defense shield system in Central Europe, and Makarov reiterated that Russia would take "adequate measures" to protect its interests if Washington does not abandon its missile shield plans.
It's a pathetically transparent tactic to persuade wobbly Europeans into abandoning their own defense against, er, IRANIAN ballistic missile attack. Unfortunately it'll probably trick a bunch of gullible Americans as well *cough*Obama*cough*.
I've made the case many times that European missile defense is no threat to Russia. And here's my latest exhibit (pulled from MDA's website) --- a Polish-based interceptor cannot catch a Russian ICBM:
"The missile defense system that is being built in the Czech Republic and Poland is anti-Russian whatever may be said and whatever words may be used to spruce up [the plans]," he said.
If the decision to deploy the missile defense elements is made, "Russia will take reply steps, including the deployment of Iskanders," Makarov said.
"While in the past the problem of missile defense concerned only Russia and the United States, now it will be a problem for all European countries," he said.
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