NATO Official: Members Face Long-Range Missile Threat

Published: May 11, 2006
Source: www.voanews.com



A senior NATO official says member nations face a growing threat of attack by long-range missiles.

NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment, Marshall Billingslea, Wednesday urged officials to consider ways to address such a threat, including the creation of a missile defense system.

Billingslea did not say which nations pose a security threat to NATO members, nor did he elaborate upon the current threat level.

The comments came as Billingslea presented a 10,000 page report on the subject of threats and defense systems to NATO officials.

Billingslea says the study, commissioned in 2002, found that a missile defense shield would be technically and financially feasible.

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Addition: NATO's Press Release:

NATO Missile Defence Feasibility study results delivered

Today NATO’s Assistant Secretary General (ASG) for Defence Investment and Permanent Chairman of the Alliance Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD), Marshall Billingslea, signed the NATO Missile Defence Feasibility Study and delivered the final report of NATO’s Armament Directors to the North Atlantic Council.

In 2002, the ASG and the Armament Directors of all NATO nations were tasked by NATO Heads of State and Government at the Prague Summit to develop and examine options for protecting Alliance territory, forces, and population centre against the full range of missile threats. This effort was in tandem with work on building an NATO Active Layered Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) for the protection of deployed NATO forces.

The Feasibility Study signed today marks nearly four years of detailed technical analysis by NATO’s armaments community. It is a detailed assessment of how to defend NATO population centres, forces and territory from all types of ballistic missile threat. The 10,000-page study was developed by an international consortium of industries, led by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). In response to a series of threat scenarios, developed by NATO military authorities, detailed defence architectures were designed and modelling conducted to ensure that incoming ballistic missiles could be intercepted successfully.

Under the supervision of NATO’s Missile Defence Project Group, and Brigadier General Robert Dehnert, the study was completed by industry and validated by missile defence experts from all NATO nations.
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