President Obama Legitimizes Missile Defense in Europe

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org, has analyzed the recent success of the NATO summit announced this past weekend and offered his comments. Ellison is one of the foremost experts in the field of missile defense in the world. His observations are the following:

"The success of the NATO summit in Lisbon, success that was driven by President Obama, is a significant achievement and victory for missile defense. Missile defense is now a legitimate, valued entity and accepted policy of twenty-eight nations; to be used to dissuade and deter those that threaten their territory as a whole or individually. The NATO member Heads of Government and State agreed that missile defense is a key element to the strategic defense of NATO. Furthermore, they stated that missile defense will be developed in NATO to protect all European populations, territory and forces.

It is of note that NATO has invited Russia to cooperate on missile defense. The Russians and Americans will look to find common ground on which to participate; a task that will be extremely challenging. The greatest challenge to Russian-United States cooperation will be the sharing of highly classified information about these defensive systems; sharing that is fundamental to a successful partnership and enhancing the overall system. This cooperation may not be viewed in the national security interest of either country.

In parallel to national security sensitivities and cooperative efforts with Russia, any strategic missile defense capability placed in Europe for the protection of the U.S. homeland would cause dissention from Russia. It is with this intention and sensitivity that the Lisbon Declaration indicated that missile defenses deployed in Europe will be to protect all NATO European population, territory and forces, rather than including the United States population and homeland.

Irrespective of the Russian cooperative efforts and whether they will be successful or not, the Lisbon Declaration remains a powerful and significant achievement for the development and deployment of missile defense as it moves our world towards an integrated, international missile defense capability that can deter and dissuade countries from seeking ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction."

SOURCE Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance