ROMANIA COMES ABOARD...
The government of Prime Minister Emil Boc in Bucharest has officially come aboard the Obama administration’s missile defense plans. The New York Times (May 3) reports that the United States and Romania have just concluded a new agreement finalizing the future site of anti-missile interceptors to be hosted by the Eastern European country. Under the arrangement, several batteries of U.S. SM-3 interceptor missiles, and the personnel to man them, will be deployed at the Deveselu Air Base in southern Romania over the next two years, with the system coming online in 2015 as part of U.S. and NATO efforts to defend against Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and emerging nuclear capabilities.
...AS RUSSIA CHAFES
The announcement of Romania’s newfound role in U.S. BMD has elicited sharp criticism from the Kremlin. “We regret to say that practical steps on building the European segment of the U.S. global defense system are being made regardless of Russian-U.S. dialogue on missile-defense problems, which was started under a decision by President Dmitri Medvedev and President Barack Obama,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in an official statement cited by the New York Times (May 3).
Moscow isn’t stopping there. London’s Telegraph (May 3) reports that Russia is angling for formal “defence safeguards” from the United States in response to the Washington-Bucharest deal. "In this situation, US legal guarantees on their intention not to deploy a missile defence system aimed at the strategic nuclear forces of Russia is becoming even more relevant," the Russian Foreign Ministry has insisted. "Moreover, we are convinced ... that we need to immediately begin agreeing a European missile defence conception and architecture, including from the standpoint of its impact on regional and global security.”
SPURNED BY RUSSIA, IRAN LOOKS INWARD
With its 2007 contract with Russia to acquire the S-300 still in limbo as a result of international concerns over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions, Iran’s military is taking matters into its own hands. The Fars news agency (May 8) has reported Iran’s Defense Minister, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, as telling reporters that Iran has plans to produce an indigenous long-range air-defense system similar to the S-300. "Manufacturing long-range missiles is on our agenda and we have taken some steps on this path," Vahidi said.
ISRAEL DOUBLES DOWN ON IRON DOME
In the wake of a series of successful rocket interceptions by “Iron Dome” last month, Israel’s government is poised to substantially deepen its investment in the artillery- and short-range missile defense system. Ha’aretz reports in its May 9th edition that Israel’s Defense Ministry plans to invest some $1 billion over the next several years for the construction of additional “Iron Dome” batteries. "We are no longer approaching this in terms of initial operational capabilities but are defining the final target for absorbing the systems, in terms of schedule and funds,” the Ministry’s director general, Udi Shani, has said. “We are talking about [having] 10-15 Iron Dome batteries. We will invest nearly $1 billion on this. This is the goal, in addition to the $205 million that the U.S. government has authorized."
The successes of “Iron Dome,” moreover, are being noticed by others. According to Shani, no fewer than five countries have expressed an interest in acquiring the system following its initial operational successes.
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