WARSAW’S QUID PRO QUO
Poland’s new government never embraced U.S. plans for an eastern European defense shield the way its predecessor had. Now the new administration in Warsaw has told Washington that the only way for plans on installing U.S. missile interceptors on its territory to move forward is for the United States to upgrade and modernize Poland’s air defense system, preferably through the use of Patriot anti-missile systems. “The presence of a U.S. military installation in Poland undoubtedly makes Polish airspace more vulnerable,” the International Herald Tribune (January 9) reports Bogdan Klich, Poland’s defense minister, as saying. In addition to the military upgrade, Klich is also seeking a guarantee from NATO to assist in Poland’s defense should it ever come under attack.
[Editor’s Note: The new conditions from Warsaw appear to have everything to do with Poland’s fears of a resurgent Russia. Moscow has objected vehemently to the Bush administration’s plans for a “third site” in Eastern Europe, and its recent strategic countermoves – including its withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty – have caused considerable jitters among its former satellites, most of whom are antagonistic to Moscow but remain fearful of it.]
STILL ARMING FOR A CONFLICT IN THE STRAIT
Defense News (January 14) reports that the PRC is developing a new generation of anti-ship ballistic missiles for use in the event of a conflict with the United States over Taiwan. “The PLA and China’s defense industry has been focused on being able to deter or disrupt U.S. intervention in a Taiwan Strait crisis for more than a decade,” a former Pentagon analyst confirms to the defense trade weekly. “Based on Chinese doctrinal and technical publication, among the more interesting programs has been research and development on advanced conventional ballistic missiles with maneuvering re-entry vehicles and terminal guidance.” The goal of this and other defense initiatives on the part of the Chinese government, observers say, is to make it difficult for “the U.S. [to] intervene with sufficient alacrity [in the defense of Taiwan] before being handed a fait accompli.”
ISRAEL SHIFTS FOCUS TO SHORT-RANGE THREATS...
Mounting rocket and missile threats from terrorist groups such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian Authority over the past two years are leading Israeli defense planners to accelerate their work on new, more capable short-range anti-missile systems. “Regretfully, the [summer 2006] Lebanon War and the high-trajectory threat from Gaza has been a kind of battle lab for learning about salvos and massive attack,” Defense News (January 21) quotes Israeli Air Force Brigadier-General Daniel Milo as saying. “But the good news is that these hard lessons are contributing to our understanding of the doctrine, technologies, tactics and procedures we’ll need later on, when the volume and severity of the threats will be much more extreme.”
The Israeli response has been the development of what observers call a “five-tiered net” of anti-missile capabilities. Longer-range missile threats from such countries as Syria and Iran will be handled by the advanced Arrow-3 interceptor, now in development, as well as its capable predecessor, the Arrow-2. Medium-range missiles will be neutralized through deployments of PAC-3 theater missile defense units, expected to be operational by mid-2009. Short-range missile and rockets will be addressed through the “David’s Sling” system, which has a range of 40 to 250 kilometers and is expected to come online in 2011. The shortest range threats – mortars and rockets with a range of 40 kilometers or less – will be destroyed by “Iron Dome,” a short-range anti-artillery system that Israeli planners say will be operational by the end of the decade.
...AMID A NEW FOCUS ON SPACE SECURITY
Israel's expanding strategic presence in space has brought with it new worries about the safety of its deployed assets there, Tel Aviv's Yediot Ahronot (January 30) reports. On January 28th, the Jewish state launched "Tecsar," a high-tech spy satellite designed to provide Israel with closer monitoring of the Iranian regime, from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in southeastern India. But, according to Brigadier-General Eliezer Shkedi, chief of the Israeli Air Force, the new satellite could soon become a target of hostile forces seeking a strategic advantage over the Jewish state. "Everybody who is familiar with this field and looks at it from an operational perspective, understands that there will be those that will try to carry out attacks on assets such as these," the Air Force chief has told an international space conference in Herzliya. "I suggest that we understand this and think about methods of defense even in the case of a physical strike, obstructing or blinding (the satellites)."
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