Keeping Our Allies Safe. Possibly.

According to a study from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the most expensive option for anti-rocket American defense which could have a crisis response capability includes mobilizing ships close to Romania in the Black Sea.

As part of efforts to protect the United States and its allies, the department of Defense brought forward a first option, which consists of permanently placing 10 terrestrial interceptors across areas of Poland, an X-ray radar in the Czech Republic and a second one in a place yet-to-be-determined, possibly Azerbaijan, as shown by a study published Friday on CBO’s official website. According to present plans, the system should be finalized and installed by 2013, which would require between 9 and 13 billion dollars.

Another choice, which would cost the United States somewhere between 18 and 22 billion dollars, making it the most expensive by far, concerns naval defense in using U.S. Navy ships equipped with an Aegis anti-rocket defense system and SM-3 Block IIA interceptors, which are intended to become part of the fleet around the year 2015. These ships would require maintaining only three bases, one in the northwestern part of the Black Sea close to Romania, another one north of the Adriatic Sea near the Italian shore and one in the Baltic Sea north of Poland, respectively. Moreover, they would be backed up by X-ray mobile radars in Azerbaijan and Qatar.

The third option, worth between 9 and 13 billion dollars, refers to SM-3 Block IIA terrestrial interceptors operable from mobile launchers in three American bases which already exist: Ramstein Air Base in Germany and the one in Incirlik, Turkey. The surveillance would be ensured by the X-ray mobile radars in Azerbaijan and Qatar. Regarding this defense hypothesis, CBO also mentions the possibility of improving Europe’s defense capacity against intercontinental ballistic missiles through an interception location in Poland and in Romania, in addition to those in Germany and Turkey. This would mean a significant increase of the coverage area, even though some of the European areas in this case (southern Italy and the southern part of the Iberic Peninsula) would still remain vulnerable.

The last choice concerns terrestrial kinetic energy interceptors operable from mobile launchers at the American bases in Ramstein and Incirlik. Taking into consideration the present development program for these interceptors, the system will not be available until 2018. This option would cost between 10 and 14 billion dollars.

However, the study emphasizes the fact that none of these theories, in the way they’ve been conceived, would be able to defend all the capitals of the European member states of NATO against any type of missile that might attack them. Ankara, the capital of Turkey (a former NATO member state), is within range of action of Shahab-3A missile and three other capitals of NATO member states (Ankara, Athens and Bucharest) within Ashura rocket’s. The second, third and fourth options could protect the above- mentioned cities against all these threats, while the first wouldn’t cover Ankara.

According to the CBO, currently there are two types of menace: one regarding near-term threats and another concerning potential future threats. Where the first type is concerned, the missiles that Iran tested or at least claims to have built, meaning the Shahab-3, Shahab-3A and Ashura, have an action range of approximately 2,000 kilometers or less and can reach the southeastern part of Europe, including areas in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. Potential threats are tied to the rockets Iran might build or obtain, such as medium-action range ballistic rockets based on liquid fuel with a range of 5,000 kilometers, and intercontinental ballistic rockets which uses solid fuel and can go 18,000 and 12,000 kilometers. All these rockets could touch any part of Europe and intercontinental rockets model could touch the United States as well.