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Old 07-28-2019, 06:25 AM
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Default Europe Is Getting America's Anti-Missile Aegis Ashore System but...

Europe Is Getting America's Anti-Missile Aegis Ashore System but...
By: Michael Peck - National Interest - 7-28-19
RE: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...e-system-69302

Photo link: https://nationalinterest.org/sites/d...?itok=XWaK0Yif

There might be a problem.

The Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland are land-based versions of the naval Aegis, each consisting of a powerful SPY-1 radar and twenty-four SM-3 interceptor rockets. Aegis Ashore is aimed at stopping short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Iran has built an arsenal of ballistic missiles, including intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) that could—in theory—be armed with nuclear warheads if Iran develops them.

America’s missile defense umbrella is supposed to protect Europe from Iranian (and perhaps Russian) ballistic missiles.

But vital tests haven’t been performed, and there are delays in building missile defense sites in Poland. All of which means that the anti-missile shield over Europe may be leaky.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has conducted only seven out of eleven planned tests in 2018, or just 64 percent, according to a Government Accountability Office study. At the same time, problems with contractors have delayed construction of an anti-missile system in Poland by eighteen months.

Begun by the Obama administration, the U.S. missile defense effort in Europe—the European Phased Adaptive Approach—has three parts. Phase I, completed in 2012, comprises a missile defense radar in Turkey and command center in Germany, supporting U.S. Navy ships equipped with the naval version of the Aegis missile defense system. Phase II was completed in 2016, when an Aegis Ashore site in Romania became operational. The delay has been in phase III, in which an Aegis Ashore site in Poland was supposed to be ready.

The Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland are land-based versions of the naval Aegis, each consisting of a powerful SPY-1 radar and twenty-four SM-3 interceptor rockets. Aegis Ashore is aimed at stopping short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Iran has built an arsenal of ballistic missiles, including intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) that could—in theory—be armed with nuclear warheads if Iran develops them.

Ironically, GAO sees the delay in building the Polish Aegis Ashore site as an unexpected godsend that gives Aegis time to work out the bugs. “Testing for EPAA Phase 3 against planned threats has been substantially reduced and other vital testing has been deferred until after delivery,” auditors pointed out. “MDA officials consider EPAA testing for Phase 3 delivery complete. However, DOD guidance and acquisition best practices stress the importance of testing to understand the extent of capabilities and how to deploy them. The eighteen-month delay to EPAA Phase 3 provides MDA an opportunity to conduct additional testing and collect more performance data. This testing could provide the warfighter with more information and confidence in the system's ability to protect our allies against expected ballistic missile threats.”

In fact, delaying EPAA Phase 3 would give European missile defense a breather to solve a major problem that has bedeviled missile defense since the 1960s: how to stop multiple missiles and warheads without the system being overwhelmed. MDA’s original plan “included five IRBM intercepts across three tests, including tests to assess capability against small raids requiring simultaneous intercepts of multiple missiles—a likely tactic in a real-world attack—prior to delivery of EPAA Phase 3,” GAO noted. However, “the current plan reduces the number of intercept tests against an IRBM and does not include a flight test against a raid until after EPAA Phase 3 capability is declared.”

Less testing means less data to ensure that European missile defense works as planned. “EPAA Phase 3 intends to provide a robust defense against IRBM and raids of multiple targets, but tests to demonstrate that capability have been reduced from five to one with the test against the raid scenario is not occurring before the capability is delivered,” GAO concluded. “Our prior work has shown that proceeding with limited test data can result in late, and costly, discovery of performance problems. More thorough assessment of the capabilities and limitations of the system could mitigate that risk by building a more solid base of knowledge.”

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Personal note: Ya know - we are sending our state-of-the-art weapon systems around the world to our so-called allies. What's to prevent these systems from being compromised sometime in the near future? Then these weapons will be useless or could be turned against us in time of war? I always wondered about our high tech systems falling into the wrong hands which in turn could cause us undo grief.

Question? Should these fall into other's hands rather than allies do we have a procedure to blow out the brains of this unit in that event? Our best high tech weapons are all over the world - what's to prevent reverse engineering or having them reprogrammed to turn them on us?

The underworld is full of spies just looking to compromise our technology or in turn be used against us. I hope we have a program built in that can be triggered to self-destruct or fry the program so that it can't be used on us?

Have you ever thought about this happening? Spies are everywhere from every country in the world. We have them - they have them. It's an ugly world out there and everyone wants what we have and we want to destroy what they have. Tit-for-tat our technology is being used against us whenever it can be compromised.

Your thoughts? Also when we ever have PEACE ON EARTH?

Boats
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