Long-Range Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe

The Congressional Research Service, a department of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national and international policy issues. Some of the CRS work is carried out specifically for individual members of Congress or their staff and is confidential. However, there is also much CRS compiled material which is considered public but is not formally published on the CRS website.

For that reason a number of other organisations try to keep track of these publications and make them publicly available via their own websites. Currently, ESO uses the following websites to track these reports and allow access to them in ESO:

EveryCRSReport.com
Federation of American Scientists (FAS)

In some cases hyperlinks allows you to access all versions of a report, including the latest. Note that many reports are periodically updated.In early 2007, after several years of internal discussions and consultations with Poland and the Czech Republic, the Bush Administration formally proposed deploying a ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) element in Europe of the larger Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) to defend against an Iranian missile threat. The system would have included 10 interceptors in Poland, a radar in the Czech Republic, and another radar deployed in a country closer to Iran, all to be completed by 2013 at a reported cost of at least $4 billion. The proposed European BMD
capability raised a number of foreign policy challenges in Europe and with Russia.

On September 17, 2009, the Obama Administration announced it would cancel the Bush proposed European BMD program. Instead, Defense Secretary Gates announced U.S. plans to
develop and deploy a regional BMD capability that can be deployed around the world on relatively short notice during crises or as the situation may demand. Gates argued this new
capability, based primarily around current BMD sensors and interceptors, would be more responsive and adaptable to growing concern over the direction of Iranian short- and medium range ballistic missile proliferation. This capability would continue to evolve and expand over the
next decade.

• Primary Source

EveryCRSReport.com https://www.everycrsreport.com/

Federation of American Scientists (FAS): Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports https://fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html

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