General Officer Assignments

The chief of staff, Air Force announced today the following assignments:

Maj. Gen. Terrence A. Feehan, program executive for programs and integration, Missile Defense Agency, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Huntsville, Ala., to vice commander, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

Brig. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves, who has been selected for the rank of major general, director, strategic plans, programs and analyses, Headquarters Air Force Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., to deputy director, Missile Defense Agency, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Huntsville, Ala.

Brig. Gen Roger W. Teague, vice commander, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., to director, strategic plans, programs and analyses, Headquarters Air Force Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.

NATO Declares Missile Defense System Operational

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

CHICAGO, May 20, 2012 – During its first session at the 25th NATO Summit here today, the alliance’s senior governing body declared operational the missile defense system it endorsed at its November 2010 summit in Lisbon, Portugal, NATO’s secretary general said.

During a news conference following the North Atlantic Council session, Anders Fogh Rasmussen characterized the accomplishment as true trans-Atlantic teamwork.

“We call this an interim capability, … the first step toward our long-term goal of providing full coverage and protection for all NATO European populations, territory and forces,” Rasmussen said.

“Our system will link together missile defense assets from different allies -- satellites, ships, radars and interceptors -- under NATO command and control,” he added. “It will allow us to defend against threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area.”

The secretary general described the culture of cooperation in NATO as “smart defense,” in which countries work together to develop capabilities they could not develop on their own.

“We already have some good examples,” he said, noting that NATO allies share the job of patrolling airspace in the Balkan states.

“This means our Baltic allies can focus their resources in other critical areas, such as deployable forces for Afghanistan,” he said. “This is why we have agreed that NATO will provide continuous air policing for the Baltic states.”

The council also agreed today to acquire an alliance ground surveillance capability that uses unarmed drones to provide crucial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information to military commanders who must monitor developing situations and identify potential threats.

“During our operation to protect the people of Libya, we learned how important it is to have the best possible intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.” Rasmussen said. “So we realized that we need more of this capability. We are now filling that gap.”

According to a White House fact sheet, a group of 14 allies has agreed to acquire five unmanned aerial vehicles and their command-and-control ground stations. Participating allies are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States.

NATO will operate and maintain the system on behalf of the alliance, with common funding from all 28 allies, the fact sheet said.

The council also approved a package of more than 20 multinational projects to provide capabilities at an affordable price for NATO, the secretary general said. These include a project among several allies to jointly acquire remote-controlled robots that can clear deadly roadside bombs, he said. Another group of allies will pool their maritime patrol aircraft to efficiently provide more awareness of activities on the sea.

“Within NATO we have also agreed that our forces will step up exercises, training and education, including with our partners, so they can preserve the skills they’ve mastered in operations,” Rasmussen added.

At the 2010 Lisbon summit, NATO leaders adopted a strategic concept that committed NATO to meeting security challenges of the 21st century, from terrorism to ballistic missile and cyber attacks to nuclear proliferation, White House officials said.

At this summit, NATO’s leadership outlined a vision of how NATO will maintain the capabilities it needs. A new document titled “NATO Forces 2020” helps to set NATO’s priorities for investing in capabilities over the next decade.

The framework calls for realistic efforts to maintain and develop multinational capabilities despite defense budget cuts in the United States and Europe, White House officials said. It also institutionalizes lessons learned from recent and current operations, ensures that NATO can maintain interoperability among allies and with partners, and identifies critical capabilities gaps.

“Our goal,” the secretary general said, is … an alliance that deals with the economic challenges of today and is prepared for the security challenges of the future.”

Progress Continues Toward NATO Missile Defense System

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, May 15, 2012 – The United States will announce at next week’s NATO summit in Chicago that the new missile defense system in Europe has reached interim operational capability, the alliance’s supreme allied commander for Europe said.

“We will announce the interim operational capability of that system, which will begin to protect our European partners from the threat of ballistic missiles,” Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis said during an interview with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service. Stavridis also commands U.S. European Command.

That system -- the first phase of the European Phased Adaptive Approach Missile Defense System that President Barack Obama proposed in 2009 -- will integrate with the NATO command-and-control system to begin standing up the NATO missile defense system, he said.

The first phase, now completed, relies on existing missile defense systems to address short- and medium-range ballistic missile threats. Upcoming phases will introduce increasingly capable interceptors and missile defense command-and-control system upgrades.

Phase 1 consists of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defense capabilities and a command-and-control system in Ramstein, Germany.

USS Monterey, followed shortly by USS The Sullivans, last year became the first ships to rotate to the Mediterranean Sea in support of the initiative. Stavridis told Congress in March he considers these ships “the backbone of missile defense” with the added benefit of being able to support anti-submarine, anti-air and anti-surface operations.

Also as part of Phase 1, Turkey agreed to host a land-based early warning radar system in Kurecik, in the southeastern Malatya province. That, in turn, will be combined with the NATO command-and-control system, Stavridis said.

“Those three elements come together to provide us with an initial capability to provide some level of defense of Europe against a threat emanating from the Middle East,” Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, Eucom’s deputy director for plans, policy and strategy, told American Forces Press Service. “That was our most significant ballistic missile defense achievement in 2011.”

Meanwhile, “we are working hard on the Phase 2, 3 and 4 elements” of the plan, Stavridis told the Senate and House armed services committees in March. That includes negotiating agreements with partner countries, particularly Romania and Poland, regarding stationing of the Aegis ballistic missile defense system that will extend the missile shield during Phase 2 of the plan.

Montgomery also reported progress toward developing an AEGIS Ashore land-based interceptor system in Deveselu, Romania, to be completed by 2015. This is a critical element of the Phase 2 rollout, which Romania agreed late last year to host.

Meanwhile, Eucom is working closely with the Polish defense ministry to implement the U.S.-Poland ballistic missile defense agreement in support of important Phase 3 capabilities, Stavridis reported.

“We’ll upgrade the missiles at that point, and we’ll upgrade the command-and-control” with more and increasingly sophisticated overhead sensors, he told Congress. “And then the next step will be 2018, when we’ll add another set of ground interceptors in Poland.”

The final phase of the plan, slated for completion by 2020, will deploy more advanced interceptors designed to counter not only medium and intermediate range missiles, but also potential future intercontinental ballistic missile threats to the United States from the Middle East.

“It is a progression,” Stavridis said of the system. “It is adaptive to the threat, in that we can plug in at any step along the way to continue to improve it, to pace the threat that we see.”

In announcing the missile defense plan three years ago, Obama promised “stronger, smarter and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies.”

“It is more comprehensive than the previous program,” he said of the plan. “It deploys capabilities that are proven and cost effective. And it sustains and builds upon our commitment to protect the U.S. homeland against long-range ballistic missile threats, and it ensures and enhances the protection of all our NATO allies.”

NATO endorsed the concept at its November 2010 summit in Lisbon, Portugal, agreeing to expand its missile defense command, control and communications capabilities to protect Europe and encouraging allies to follow the U.S. lead in making voluntary national contributions to the effort.

Based on agreements at the Lisbon summit, Eucom fielded workstations throughout its headquarters and service component headquarters that use a NATO-compatible network able to support the NATO ballistic missile defense mission, officials explained.

The command plans to tie U.S. ships to that network, a step toward increasingly integrated theater sensors, shooters and platforms.

In addition, the Air Force is establishing a joint, combined European Integrated Air and Missile Defense Center in Eisiedlerhof, Germany. Its mission, Stavridis told Congress, will be to educate, develop and refine U.S., partner and allied missile defense capabilities and expertise.

With growing support within NATO to support the mission, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and France are exploring ways to complement it, Stavridis told Congress. He noted that the Dutch are buying ships capable of plugging into the ballistic missile defense architecture, and that all NATO nations now contribute command and control capabilities.

Getting additional commitments for the system is expected to be an agenda topic at next week’s NATO summit. Stavridis told Congress in March he’ll continue to press the Europeans to shoulder a growing role in missile defense.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is expected to join in that effort, with the goal of making the system as comprehensive as possible.

“Step by step, NATO’s territorial missile defense is becoming a reality,” he reported in October just before a NATO defense ministers conference in Brussels.

U.S. Missile Defense Counters Growing Threat

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – Six days after North Korea’s failed long-range rocket launch, the head of the Defense Department’s Missile Defense Agency testified on Capitol Hill about bolstering U.S. defenses against a growing ballistic missile threat.

Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O’Reilly appeared yesterday before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee to discuss the administration’s fiscal 2013 budget request of $7.75 billion for his agency.

The request is a reduction of more than $650 million from the fiscal 2012 appropriation. Since 1999, the United States has invested more than $90 billion in missile defense.

The latest request, O’Reilly said, “balances our policies as documented in the 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review [with] U.S. Strategic Command's integrated air and missile defense priorities, [Missile Defense Agency] technical feasibility assessments, affordability constraints and current intelligence community estimates of the ballistic missile threat.”

But the director expressed concern to the panel about two critically needed programs that are in jeopardy because of past congressional funding reductions.

The first, he said, is a missile defense sensor capability provided by the precision tracking space system, which allows space-based tracking of ballistic missiles. The second is the need to develop a second independent layer of homeland defense with the SM-3 IIB interceptor, a highly deployable missile that would destroy threat missiles earlier in their flight paths than the current architecture.

“I request your support for these programs,” O’Reilly said, “so that our homeland benefits from the same layered missile defense approach that we successfully employ in our regional defenses.”

The director described improvements made last year to the complex ballistic missile defense system designed to protect the United States and its allies. These include activating a new missile field and a fire-control node at Fort Greely, Alaska; activating an upgraded early warning radar in Thule, Greenland; and upgrading the reliability of three ground-based interceptors, or GBIs, he said.

“This year,” O’Reilly told the panel, “we continue to aggressively pursue the agency's highest priority -- to conduct a missile intercept with the newest version of the GBI's exo-atmospheric kill vehicle after two previous flight-test failures.”

A failure review board of government and industry experts redesigned critical GBI kill vehicle components and established more stringent manufacturing and component requirements, he added.

“These requirements have previously not been encountered anywhere in the aerospace industry,” O’Reilly noted, adding that these have caused delays in preparing for the next flight tests.

“We will fly a nonintercept test by the end of this year to verify we have resolved all issues, and then we will conduct our next intercept flight test early next year to reactivate the {ground-based midcourse defense] production line,” the director said. “We will not approve the execution of a flight test until our engineers and independent experts are convinced that we have resolved all issues discovered in previous testing.”

Also this year, the agency will activate a hardened power plant at Fort Greely, increase the firepower of fielded GBIs by testing and upgrading GBI components, and boost the capability of sea-based X-band radar, the tracking and discrimination radar used for the GMD element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System.

“Regional defense highlights over the past year include the on-time deployment of the first phase of the European Phased Adaptive Approach,” O’Reilly said, “consisting of the command-and-control node in Germany, forward-based radar in Turkey and an Aegis missile defense ship on station in the Mediterranean Sea.”

The agency also demonstrated the first Aegis intercept of a 3,700-kilometer target using remote forward-based radar, he said, and the simultaneous intercept of two missiles by the terminal high-altitude area defense system, called THAAD.

The THAAD element gives the missile defense system a globally transportable, rapidly deployable ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles in or out of the atmosphere during the final, or terminal, flight phase.

“This year the first two THAAD batteries will be available for deployment, increasing the number of Aegis-capable ships to 29,” the director said, and three SM-3 Block IB flight tests will show that last year’s flight-test failure is resolved.

Coming up, he said, the largest missile defense tests in history will involve the first simultaneous intercepts of multiple short and medium-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles by Patriot forward-based radar.

The United States has missile defense cooperative programs with the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Israel, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy and many other nations. O’Reilly said the agency works with more than 20 countries, “including our cooperative development programs with Israel and Japan and our first foreign military sale of THAAD to the United Arab Emirates,” and supports technical discussions with the Russians on missile defense.

Phases 2 and 3 of the European phased, adaptive approach to missile defense are on track to meet the 2015 and 2018 deployment dates, the director said.