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US hails 'important step' as missile defences go live in Romania US switches on $800m missile shield in Romania
(about 11 hours later)
A US missile defence system in Romania becomes operational on Thursday in a move welcomed by US officials as an “important step” but also one likely to infuriate Moscow. The US has switched on an $800m (£550m) missile shield in Romania that it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states, but which the Kremlin says is aimed at blunting its own nuclear arsenal.
To the music of military bands at the remote Deveselu airbase, senior US and Nato officials declared operational the ballistic missile defence site, which is capable of shooting down rockets from countries such as Iran that Washington says could one day target major European cities.
“As long as Iran continues to develop and deploy ballistic missiles, the United States will work with its allies to defend Nato,” said the US deputy defence secretary, Robert Work, standing in front of the shield’s massive grey concrete housing, which was adorned with a US flag.
Despite Washington’s plans to continue to develop the capabilities of its system, Work said the shield would not be used against any future Russian missile threat. “There are no plans at all to do that,” he told a news conference.
Before the ceremony, Frank Rose, deputy US assistant secretary of state for arms control, said Iran’s ballistic missiles could hit parts of Europe, including Romania.
When complete, the defensive umbrella will stretch from Greenland to the Azores. On Friday the US will break ground on a final site in Poland due to be ready by late 2018, completing the defence line first proposed almost a decade ago.
The full shield also includes ships and radars across Europe. It will be handed over to Nato in July, with command and control run from a US airbase in Germany.
Russia is incensed at such of show of force by its cold war rival in formerly communist-ruled eastern Europe. Moscow says the US-led alliance is trying to encircle it close to the strategically important Black Sea, home to a Russian naval fleet and where Nato is also considering increasing patrols.
“It is part of the military and political containment of Russia,” Andrey Kelin, a senior Russian foreign ministry official, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
“These decisions by Nato can only exacerbate an already difficult situation,” he added. Kelin said the move would hinder efforts to repair ties between Russia and the alliance.
The office of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow doubted Nato’s stated aim of protecting the alliance against Iranian rockets, following a historic nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers last year that Russia helped to negotiate. “The situation with Iran has changed dramatically,” said Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Nato is preparing a new deterrent in Poland and the Baltics, following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. In response, Russia is reinforcing its western and southern flanks with three new divisions.
Poland is concerned that Russia may retaliate further by announcing the deployment of nuclear weapons to its enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania. Russia has stationed anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles there, able to cover huge areas and complicate Nato’s ability to move around.
The Kremlin says the shield’s aim is to neutralise Moscow’s nuclear arsenal long enough for the US to strike Russia in the event of war. Washington and Nato deny that.
“Missile defence … does not undermine or weaken Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent,” said Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, at the Deveselu base.
Douglas Lute, the US envoy to Nato, said Nato would press ahead with its biggest modernisation since the cold war. “We are deploying at sea, on the ground and in the air across the eastern flanks of the alliance … to deter any aggressor,” Lute said.
At a cost of billions of dollars, the missile defence umbrella relies on radars to detect a ballistic missile launch into space. Sensors then measure the rocket’s trajectory and destroy it in space before it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. The interceptors can be fired from ships or ground sites.
Related: Nato and US defence chiefs issue security warnings over BrexitRelated: Nato and US defence chiefs issue security warnings over Brexit
The missile interceptor station in Deveselu, southern Romania, will help defend Nato members against the threat of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles – particularly from the Middle East, said US assistant secretary of state Frank Rose in Bucharest on Wednesday. The Romanian shield was first assembled in New Jersey and then transferred to the Deveselu base in containers.
Russia has taken a dim view of the project, seeing it as a security threat on its doorstep. Rose said: “Both the US and Nato have made it clear the system is not designed for, or capable of, undermining Russia’s strategic deterrence capability.” While US and Nato officials are adamant that the shield is designed to counter threats from the Middle East and not Russia, they remained vague on whether the radars and interceptors could be reconfigured to defend against Russia in a conflict.
“Russia has repeatedly raised concerns that the US and Nato defence are directed against Russia and represents a threat to its strategic nuclear deterrent. Nothing could be further from the truth.” The US says Russia has ballistic missiles, in breach of a treaty which agreed that the two powers must not develop and deploy missiles with a range of 500km to 5,500km (310-3,400 miles). The US declared Russia in non-compliance of the treaty in July 2014.
The Deveselu site will host a battery of SM-2 missile interceptors and will officially be integrated into the Nato missile shield at the bloc’s summit meeting to be held in Warsaw in July. The issue remains sensitive because the US does not want to give the impression it would be able to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads, which is what Russia fears.
Work on the Deveselu site began in October 2013 and is thought to have cost $800m (€700m).
The US permanent representative to Nato, Douglas Lute, described the activation of the missile system as a gesture of his country’s commitment to Article Five by which all 28 Nato members pledge a one-for-all, all-for-one response to any military threat if a member invokes the treaty clause in the face of an attack.
He said: “Tomorrow is a demonstration that the US, Romania and the other allies contributing to the defence system mean what Article Five says.”
Nato decided in 2010 to create a missile shield based on US technology. The project is due to be completed in 2020, with installations in Poland as well as Romania.
The western military alliance insists the role of the planned shield is a “purely defensive” response to external threats.