In 2009, the Obama Administration scrapped President Bush's plans for missile defense in Europe in an unprecedented act of capitulation to Russia, thus alienating two allies (Poland and the Czech Republic) with whom Washington had signed missile defense hosting agreements just a year earlier. At the time, the Administration, including then Defense Secretary Robert Gates, claimed that intelligence data indicated that Iran was now developing short-range instead of long-range ballistic missiles and that therefore the systems envisioned by Bush (a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 Ground Based Interceptors in Poland, also known as "third site elements") were not needed. Instead, Gates and Obama offered the deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)-capable ships and, in the 2018-2020 timeframe, ground-based SM-3 Block IIB interceptors (which have yet to be developed and constructed) intended to intercept long-range ballistic missiles. At the time, it was already known that such a plan...(Read Full Post)