Poland urges NATO

NATO’s 28 members decided in 2010 to create a missile shield based on US technology.

The project is due to be completed in 2020, with significant elements in Romania and Poland. But last monday Poland urged NATO’s new secretary general to push ahead with the missile shield system amid the West’s worst standoff with Russia since the Cold War.

Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, who chose Warsaw for his first foreign visit, said Poland is "a key contributor to our missile defence system.” Stoltenberg, who took over as NATO chief on 1st October, insisted that Russia must reverse course in Ukraine but stressed that the alliance remains open to a constructive relationship with Moscow.

Tension mounted further after Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted last month as saying that “if I wanted, Russian troops could not only be in Kiev in two days, but in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw or Bucharest, too.” The escalation of tensions with Russia since January over its role in the Ukraine crisis has sounded the alarm on NATO’s eastern flank in countries that were under Moscow’s thumb during the Soviet era.

The Western defence alliance insists the role of the planned shield is a “purely defensive” response to external threats, notably from so-called “rogue states”, and is in no way directed against Russia. “We firmly support the creation of this system as a pan-NATO one because only this makes deep sense both politically and in terms of defence,” Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski said at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “Poland is determined to build its missile shield and air defence system — it’s important not only for Poland — and we uphold our obligations for the US portion of this project,” stated.

Poland: Missile Interceptors "On Target"

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday said an Obama administration plan to in the coming years field next-generation missile defense systems in Poland is "absolutely on target."

Speaking in Warsaw, Kerry told journalists the evolving security dynamics in Syria and Iran have not impacted U.S. plans to deploy in 2018 Standard Missile 3 Block 2A interceptors near the Baltic Sea coast in Redzikowo in accordance with the U.S. "phased adaptive approach" for European missile defense.

Polish officials are somewhat sensitive about the issue of alterations to plans on missile defense-cooperation with the United States. In 2009, the Obama administration announced it was canceling a Bush-era plan to around 2015 field 10 long-range Ground Based Interceptors on Polish territory and instead would field a different model of interceptor -- the Standard Missile 3 Block 2B. But then in 2013, the United States declared it would not pursue development of the Block 2B, which was aimed at targeting intercontinental-ballistic missiles, and would just field Block 2A missiles in Poland.

The latter weapon is designed to target intermediate-range missiles. "Poland is a very important part of the European phased-adaptive approach on NATO missile defense," Kerry said. The United States and NATO are pursuing an alliance-wide missile shield capable of defeating medium-range ballistic missiles fired from the Middle East. Russia opposes the effort, seeing it as a threat to the strategic nuclear balance on the continent.