Ballistic Missile Defense in the European Theater: Political, Military and Technical Considerations

The potential use of long-range ballistic missiles by Iran as a means to deliver weapons of mass destruction is a growing threat for which the United States and its European allies have no defense. An Iranian ballistic missile capability that is able to range continental Europe would not only hold US and European interests at risk, it could also lead to an even longer range capability that threatens the homeland of the United States. Therefore, the United States faces the complex security challenge of emplacing ballistic missile defense assets on European soil in the very near-term to mitigate this threat. Consequently, the United States must work through a quagmire of issues that overlap the political, military, and technical domains in international security cooperation in order to effectively weave ballistic missile defense into the European security fabric. This paper explores the urgent and complex issues of European ballistic missile defense integration for which there is currently no solution. This work advances the idea that both the United States and Europe must use NATO as the primary integrator of ballistic missile defense assets as the means of fusing these three domains. This paper further proposes that a capabilities-based planning approach must be employed in order to ensure that the maximum benefit from each stakeholder is gained while securing transatlantic arrangements that are mutually-beneficial for the long-term. Such an approach will provide the Allies with the tools to effectively deter, and if necessary, defeat an emerging Iranian ballistic missile threat.