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A U.S. Patriot missile battery has arrived in Poland as part of an agreement to upgrade the NATO ally's air defenses, the U.S. embassy said on Monday, in a deployment likely to irritate neighboring Russia.The battery, manned by up to 150 U.S. troops, will be stationed for about one month four times a year in Morag, northern Poland, close to Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad. Its main mission is to train Polish military personnel. U.S. troops were unloading 37 railway cars of equipment on Monday, the embassy said. U.S. and Polish officials are due to visit the site on Wednesday and...

The US House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly backed President Barack Obama's plans to help Israel deploy an anti-missile system, in an unmistakable election-year show of support. By a 410-4 margin, lawmakers endorsed Obama's plan to give Israel 205 million dollars for its production of a short-range rocket defense system called "Iron Dome." "With nearly every square inch of Israel at risk from rocket and missile attacks, we must ensure that our most important ally in the region has the tools to defend itself," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman. "The looming threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, and...

When the New York Times covers a weapons program we tend to take note, in part because they do so it so rarely. And when they put it on the front page, above the fold, we take even more note. The Times did just that this morning, trumpeting a tale about how a veteran missile defense sceptic at MIT, Ted Postol, and a Cornell University colleague, George Lewis, performed an analysis of SM-3 tests and came away convinced that the system does not work very well. Now my first reaction was deep skepticism. After all this has appeared to be...

Poland will unveil its first US Patriot-type missiles battery at a military base in the northern town of Morag on May 26, a Polish defence ministry spokesman said Tuesday, AFP reports. "Ceremonies associated with the first rotation of the Patriot missile battery will be held Wednesday, May 26, in Morag", spokesman Janusz Sejmej said in a statement. Asked by AFP, the defence ministry's press service declined Tuesday to provide further details. The Polish military base at Morag, in the Mazurian Lakes region, is some 250 kilometres (150 miles) north of Warsaw and just 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the border...

The budgetary difficulty that has been delaying Israel's armament with the anti-missile defense system Iron Dome has apparently been resolved. The Pentagon has issued a message to Israel's Defense Ministry that U.S. President Barack Obama has approved the transfer of special assistance totaling $205 million (just under NIS 800 million) for the purchase of more than ten Iron Dome batteries. Iron Dome defense system gets new backer: Barack Obama U.S. agrees to fund anti-missile defense system, long delayed due to budgetary difficulties, beyond regular annual defense assistance afforded to Israel. The budgetary difficulty that has been delaying Israel's armament with...

The rapid development and deployment of cruise and ballistic missile capabilities in recent years has raised the security stakes on the South Asian subcontinent. The three major nuclear states—India, China and Pakistan—have been sharpening their respective missile capabilities and stockpiling a growing arsenal, while simultaneously developing/acquiring ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability to defend against potential threats. China has also developed a potent nuclear triad (i.e. strategic bombers, land-based missiles, and ballistic missile submarines) that Pakistan may be able to acquire given the close relations between Beijing and Islamabad, India will soon achieve this capability after the nuclear submarine INS Arihant...

Israel has held preliminary technical talks with NATO that could lay the groundwork for joint missile defenses, an alliance official said on Wednesday.Citing a perceived threat from Iran, NATO has called on its 28 members to agree at a November summit in Lisbon to develop jointly a missile defense system to protect Europe. While not a member of NATO, Israel has boosted cooperation with the alliance as part of its preparations for a possible show-down with the Iranians. Appearing at a conference outside Tel Aviv, Alan Berry of NATO's Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense Program Office was asked about...

The head of NATO Wednesday put the cost of linking up the alliance's missile defense systems at less than 200 million euros ($260 million), and said it was a small price to pay to protect citizens.NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been urging the 28 NATO states to agree to the system at a summit in Lisbon in November, citing an increased threat from Iran, but alliance members have questioned the cost. The project envisages creating an alliance command and control system to link existing national missile defenses and extend NATO-wide protection beyond that which the alliance already provides to...

Japan remains fully committed to building a linchpin multibillion-dollar missile interceptor with the United States, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency told Congress, even as U.S.-Japanese ties adjust to a new era. Army Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly said on Wednesday he had held several high-level program reviews with Japanese government officials since the Democratic Party of Japan's victory in the August 30, 2009, elections for the legislature's lower house. "They have indicated that they are in full support and their commitments are solid," he told the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, referring to a Standard Missile-3 upgrade program in...

Lockheed Martin has won a contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency to explore firing Patriot Advanced Capability-3 anti-ballistic missiles from airplanes. The company said the tests would initially focus on using the Boeing McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle as the launch platform for the PAC-3s. Although the initial $ 3 million funding for the research program is small by the expensive R and D budgets of the BMD programs, its implications could be far reaching. The program is known as the Air-Launched Hit-to-Kill, or ALHTK, initiative. If successful, the program would eventually see U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft equipped with PAC-3s...

Based on the Pentagon's September 2009 review of U.S. ballistic missile defenses, military officials want to harness technology for a more flexible and adaptive defense architecture, the principal deputy Defense undersecretary for policy said. James N. Miller spoke to an audience of more than 200 missile defense experts here March 22 at the 8th Annual U.S. Missile Defense Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. Mr. Miller said the United States needs to integrate its missile-defense technology with foreign partners based on various threats. Such an approach would be more cost effective and also help to reduce...

Ballistic missile defense has come out of the world of the controversial and improbable and now is in the realm of the accepted and possible, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said today. Lynn spoke to the 8th Annual U.S. Missile Defense Conference held at the Ronald Reagan Building here. The deputy secretary charted the course of missile defense in the United States. He said officials recognized as soon as the Nazis launched V-2 missiles at Great Britain during World War II that a new threat had emerged, and something had to be done to combat it. But for...

As Israel braces for possible war with Iran and its proxies, a new kind of conflict in which the civilian population will be a primary target for massive missile barrages, there are growing concerns about the military's ability to shield cities as well as its key bases. In the 34-day 2006 war Israel fought with Hezbollah of Lebanon, Tehran's main surrogate in the Levant, the Shiite movement fired some 4,000 rockets, supplied by Iran and Syria, into Israel as far south as the port city of Haifa, at a rate of around 150 per day. That was the deepest Hezbollah...

India's new Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile, being developed to destroy hostile missiles encountered coordination problem and failed to take off during a planned launch from the Integrated Test Range at Wheeler Island off Orissa coast on Monday. "Coordinated exercise between target missile Prithvi from Chandipur and the indigenously built interceptor from Wheeler Island could not take place properly during the planned trial," defence sources said. Though Prithvi - the target missile - was test-fired at 10.02 hrs from a mobile launcher from ITR's launch complex-3 at Chandipur-on-sea, 15 km from here, the interceptor missile failed to blast off,...

): With an eye to develop a full fledged multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence system, India is likely to test-fire its indigenously designed and developed Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) off Orissa coast today. The AAD missile is capable of destroying any hostile ballistic missile at low altitude situation, defence sources said on Saturday. Range integration work at the ITR for the proposed trial is complete and the test is likely to be conducted today, they said. The target missile, a modified indigenously built 'Prithvi' posing as an enemy missile, would first be lifted off...

NATO needs to develop an anti-missile defence system as a deterrence, the alliance chief said Friday, while seeking to assure Moscow that the organisation posed no threat to Russia. "We must develop an effective missile defence," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told an international conference in the Polish capital. "In the coming years we will probably face many more countries and possibly even some non-state actors armed with long-range missiles and nuclear capabilities," he said. Rasmussen also insisted later during a press conference that "a nuclear capability will remain an essential part of a credible deterrence in the future."...

The Aegis weapon system, installed on board the US and Spanish naval warships, has successfully exhibited its combat capabilities during a recent trial. The Combat System Ship Qualification Trials were conducted in the waters near Pt. Mugu, California last week. US Navy’s recently commissioned guided missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) along with USS Wayne E Meyer (DDG 108) took part in the trial. Spanish Navy’s Alvaro de Bazan (F-101) frigate was also a part of the exercise. The Aegis integrated naval weapon system, fitted on the ships, was evaluated for combat-readiness through comprehensive surface, subsurface and anti-air warfare exercises,...

A new missile was installed in a silo at Fort Greely last month, the 22nd interceptor at the Missile Defense Agency site outside Delta Junction. Ralph Scott, the spokesman for Alaska Missile Defense, said the latest installation is part of an effort to steadily add missiles at the site. The Defense Department has plans to install 26 missiles at Fort Greely, with the process to be completed by October. Fort Greely is one of two sites in the U.S. with deployed interceptor missiles, according to the Missile Defense Agency Web site, joining three missiles at Vandenberg Air Force Base in...

A leading U.S. defense official yesterday said Washington will invest in establishing a “regional missile defense” against North Korean nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Schiffer made the statement in his op-ed piece “Quadrennial Defense Report and the Korean Peninsula” sent to The Dong-A Ilbo. He said the threat of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles aimed at South Korea and the U.S. exists and is growing. Schiffer is seen indirectly inviting Seoul, which has declined to join the U.S. missile defense system, to participate in a new “regional” system. On the regional missile system, he said...

Poland on Tuesday agreed to a new version of a deal on stationing an American missile shield, a government statement said, adding it would be aimed essentially at potential threats from Iran. Warsaw "accepts signing a protocol modifying the accord signed by the Polish and American governments on the installation on our territory of anti-ballistic missile interceptors concluded in Warsaw on August 20, 2008," it said. In September, US President Barack Obama shelved a plan by his predecessor George W. Bush to deploy a missile shield in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic by 2013 that Russia...