A giant deckhouse normally seen on board a Navy destroyer is rising on land in Romania, the latest innovative application of Aegis’ ballistic missile defense now tasked to provide a land-based shield for Europe.
Aegis Ashore is the Navy’s and Missile Defense Agency’s sea-based ballistic missile detection, tracking and intercept system that is normally found within the high towers of U.S. destroyers and some Ticonderoga-class cruisers. At sea, the system can detect a launch and begin queueing a response to track and direct one of its shipboard missiles to intercept the attack at mid-phase in the launch, or it can relay that information to another missile defense system that is better positioned to intercept.
The Romania site is “basically a deckhouse equipped with the Aegis weapon system and standard missiles,” said Navy spokesman Lt. Timothy Hawkins. “The shape kind of favors what you see on a destroyer.”
A few years ago, the Missile Defense Agency began experimenting with the idea that the Aegis ballistic missile defense in the ship towers did not necessarily need to be at sea. In 2009, President Obama directed that the system be modified for the defense of Europe. Two sites were selected, one at an air base in Romania set to open later this year and another in Poland scheduled for 2018.
In addition to ballistic missile defense, the sites will undergo some hardware and software modifications to allow the land-based towers to provide cruise missile defense for Europe as well.
For ballistic missile defense, the Romania site initially will be stocked with the Raytheon-produced Standard Missile-3 block 1B, the newest version of the missile that has had improvements made to its steering and propulsion. The Poland site, when it is up and running, will get the Standard Missile block 2A, which is still in testing.
The Navy did not specify which missile threats the sites may defend against. Russia is opposed to the sites despite the U.S. argument that they are not offensive and not directed against Russia, but would serve as a first line of detection and defense against any Middle East launch.
“We’ve had a long conversation with the Russians,” NATO Supreme Allied Commander and U.S. European Command commander, Gen. Philip Breedlove, told reporters. “Physics is physics. They understand the physics. Their public position on this is that it’s not good.”
The Aegis Ashore program is intended “toward countering the proliferation of current and emerging threats from rogue states,” Hawkins said.
Just sending the Aegis system, instead of committing the entire destroyer, was appealing for its efficiency.
Originally, the Navy was going to send the USS John Finn, one of its latest destroyers, to Romania, congressional staff said on background.
Instead, a mix of between 150 and 250 Navy personnel, civilians and contractors will be deployed to the land site, at the southern Romania city of Deveselu for tours ranging between six months to a year.
The congressional staff who briefed reporters on the system stressed it is a self-defense, not offensive, system. Given the sensitivities, though, the site will have its own anti-air capabilities, to provide for the self-defense of those sites, the staffers said.
The U.S. also has committed to permanently basing four additional Aegis ballistic missile system destroyers in Rota, Spain, and another, land-based and transportable radar surveillance system, to provide “full coverage and protection of all NATO territory and forces,” Hawkins said.
“Creating a missile defense capability that protects Europe is an enormous undertaking,” Hawkins said.
