Frank Rose, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance. (file)
Increasing threat reinforces the importance of continuing to strengthen our collaborative missile defense efforts.
The increasing threat associated with the proliferation of ballistic missiles reinforces the importance of continuing to strengthen our collaborative missile defense efforts. We need to work together, bilaterally and multilaterally, to determine how we can leverage fully our unique capabilities to protect ourselves.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Cooperation is Key to Ballistic Missile Defense
After all, developing robust regional deterrence architectures is not the job of the United States alone – it requires close and continuing cooperation with all of our allies and partners.
President Barack Obama has made international cooperation on missile defense a key priority, recently said State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Frank Rose.
The United States plan to strengthen deterrence architectures is based on two principles: cooperating with regional partners to deploy the Ballistic Missile Defense system, and incorporating assets and structures that our partners already have, or will have in the future.
In doing so, the U.S. will tailor the system to account for unique regional requirements, threats and available capabilities. We will phase in the best available technology to meet existing and evolving threats.
In Europe, our cooperation with other NATO member countries is proceeding apace and the United States is committed to deploying the European Phased Adaptive Approach as our voluntary contribution to NATO missile defense. At the same time we seek missile defense cooperation between the United States and Russia, and between NATO and Russia, as such cooperation will strengthen – not weaken – strategic stability over the long term, though in pursuing that cooperation, we will not accept any limitations on our capabilities.
The United States is also working with countries in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific, said Deputy Assistant Secretary Rose. We have robust programs of missile defense cooperation with Israel, and are also cooperating in the Middle East through the recently established U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council. In the Asia-Pacific region we are working closely with Japan to develop an advanced interceptor, and continue to work on enhancing interoperability between U.S. and Japanese forces. We also are discussing bilaterally ballistic missile defense cooperation with the Republic of Korea and Australia.
And although there is still much to do, he said, “we are proud of how much we have already achieved by working with our allies and partners to counter the threat from ballistic missiles.”