Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament Presentation by Mr Peter C.W. Flory NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment on 28 June 2007 Mr Chairman, Introduction & Summary I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Security and Defense to provide an overview of what we are doing in NATO to counter the increasing threat from ballistic missiles. This is an item of tremendous mutual interest – after all, 21 members of NATO, who are participating in NATO discussions on missile defense, are also members of the EU; a threat to NATO is a threat to the EU. So I welcome the opportunity to appear before you, and to address your questions and concerns. For some time, the NATO Alliance has been engaged in serious debate on how best to protect deployed forces, population centres and territory of NATO member states from ballistic missiles – possibly carrying chemical, biological or nuclear warheads. Earlier this year the United States announced it would seek to enhance both its defence and that of its allies by fielding ground-based missile defence assets in Europe. To that end, the US has begun discussions with Poland and the Czech Republic. Two other NATO Allies and European Union members, the UK and Denmark, already participate in the US missile defence system. 1 Discussions on extending the coverage of the US missile defence to Europe where it would cover most but not all Allies have put missile defence at the top of NATO’s agenda. Missile Defence goes to the heart of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, whereby Allies agree to come to the aid of each other when attacked. The concept of the indivisibility of the Alliance security is and will remain at the very heart of NATO discussion on Missile Defence. As Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has said on many occasions,” When it comes to Missile Defence, there should not be an A-league and a B-league within NATO… For me it is indivisibility of security that is the guiding principle.” This morning, I would like to update you on NATO’s missile defence activities to date, and give you an indication of where we intend to go in this area. The Threat While there is agreement among NATO nations that the ballistic missile threat exists and is increasing, it is fair to say that there is currently no agreed assessment of the immediacy of that threat to NATO and to Europe. A new threat assessment should be completed by NATO in September. The Alliance also has not yet reached a consensus on the role of missile defense in addressing this threat. Diplomacy, non-proliferation and arms control agreements, and deterrence all have an important role to play in our response to the spread of ballistic missile technology and WMD capability – these are all elements of NATO’s balanced policy to counter WMD and their means of delivery. 2 But it is clear, to even a casual newspaper reader, that these measures have not succeeded in several important cases. The North Korean nuclear test last year, Iran’s ongoing nuclear program, and increasingly ambitious tests of North Korea’s and Iran’s missile programmes suggest that these regimes are determined to acquire these capabilities in the face of significant international opposition, and are willing to endure diplomatic criticism, sanctions and material hardship to do so. Despite extensive pressure from the international community, including extensive multilateral diplomacy, including the important efforts of the so-called EU Three, Germany, France and the United Kingdom and despite several rounds of UN sanctions, Iran refuses to suspend uranium enrichment as required by the UNSC 1737. In addition, Iran refuses to share with the IAEA information on the status of that programme. In his latest report to the IAEA Board of Governors on 11 June, the Agency's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said: "Iran has not taken the steps called for by the Board nor responded to the demands of the Security Council. The facts on the ground indicate that Iran continues steadily to perfect its knowledge relevant to enrichment, and to expand the capacity of its enrichment facility." Against the backdrop of Iran’s continuing nuclear program, we are seriously concerned by Iran’s ambitious program to develop ballistic missiles of longer and longer ranges. On 2 November 2006, we saw Iran test dozens of missiles, including the SHABAB-2 and SHABAB-3. The latter, with a range of over 1000 km, is able to strike NATO's south- 3 eastern flank. Last January, Iran tested up to 5 missiles, probably including at least one SHABAB-3 extended range version, which is estimated to have a range of 2000 km. Launched in Western Iran, such a missile could hit Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. There are also reports that North Korea has shipped to Iran BM25 missiles which could have a range of up to 3500 km, which would enable them to strike targets deep inside Europe such as the whole Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Iranian missiles are not the only source of concern. North Korea celebrated the American national holiday of the 4th of July last year by test-launching 7 missiles, including the long range TAEPO DONG-2, believed to be designed to strike the USA. Then in October 2006, North Korea conducted what has been generally agreed as an underground test of a nuclear weapon. The Response Given these developments, it is clear that we need to be thinking about additional strategies to defend ourselves from the threat of ballistic missiles being used to blackmail or intimidate or coerce NATO Governments or to attack NATO territory. NATO has been thinking about this problem since the mid-90s, in the wake of Iraq’s use of ballistic missiles to attack U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and against Israeli cities, during the first Gulf War. NATO has repeatedly gone on record with its concerns about this growing threat, and the need to develop means to deal with this threat. 4 The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, approved at the Washington Summit in 1999, states that “The Alliance’s defence posture must have the capability to address appropriately and effectively the risks associated with the proliferation of NBC weapons and their means of delivery, which pose a potential threat to Allies’ populations, territory and forces. A balanced mix of forces, response capabilities and strengthened defences is needed”. At the Prague Summit in November 2002, NATO leaders directed NATO staff to examine options for addressing the increasing missile threat to Alliance territory, forces and population centres and initiated a NATO Missile Defence feasibility study. As a first step, NATO focused primarily on Theatre Missile Defence to counter the threat posed by shorter-range ballistic missiles (up to 3000 km) to deployed NATO forces. Not long after the Istanbul Summit in 2004, the Alliance launched the NATO’s Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) Programme. The initial contract for an ALTBMD capability was signed at the NATO Summit in Riga last November. It will allow us to integrate the many building blocks of the NATO TMD architecture into a real, deployable capability. The NATO ALTBMD programme will provide a missile defence command and control backbone and the Alliance members will provide the sensors and interceptors. This Alliance programme has the support of all NATO member nations and is on track to deliver a capability for our deployed forces in the 2010-2015 timeframe. 5 European nations will provide significant capabilities to the ALTBMD system with the Patriot Pac-3, the Medium Extended Air Defence System (MEADS) and the Sol-Air Moyenne Portee/Terre (SAMP/T) acquisition programmes. These lower-layer systems only address a part of the TBM spectrum. However, when I look at current TMD programmes and at the way the threat is developing, I am concerned that currently only the US has development programmes for upper-layer systems. I believe that European companies and governments should consider expanding their current missile defence development activities to include the high end of the TMD spectrum. I encourage European companies to team up, with each other or possibly with US companies, to develop upper-layer and Early Warning capabilities among themselves. In that respect, the current French-Italian SAMP/T programme could lead to a broader European programme aimed at developing the capability to engage long-range theatre ballistic missiles. I note also that France is working on developing a programme – the Spirale Infrared Satellite – that, if deployed, would be able to detect missile launches. From a transatlantic cooperation perspective, both sides of the Atlantic have common technological and political interests. As I mentioned earlier, another element of NATO’s response to the growing ballistic missile threat is the Missile Defence Feasibility Study, to tackle the broader challenge of defending populations and territory. This study – a technical assessment - was completed in 2006. Key Findings of the MD FS Some key findings of the Feasibility Study that form a technical basis of NATO’s continuing work on missile defence, are as follows: 6 • The MD FS identifies several options, ranging from less to morecomprehensive, in effect creating a scaleable architecture in terms of capabilities and costs. • On the lower-end of the spectrum, NATO could upgrade the ALTBMD BMC3I capability at relatively low cost to be interoperable with national capabilities made available by nations to the Alliance for population and territorial defence. • One possible intermediate solution for NATO would be to acquire a MD system based on 1 midcourse interceptor launch site and 1 or 2 radar sites.