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Argument: European missile defenses would not counter Russia-to-US attack

Issue Report: European missile defense

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Peter Brookes. “The Case for European Missile Defense”. Heritage. March 14, 2008 – “The Kremlin also insists the limited system would undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent, despite the fact that a Russian land-based nuclear strike on the United States would not be launched on a trajectory over Poland, but would fly toward its American targets over the North Pole, or Iceland and Greenland, depending on the targets. […] In fact, according to the MDA, the proposed kinetic kill vehicle designated for deployment in Poland is simply not fast enough to catch a Russian land-based ICBM in a tail-chase scenario. These interceptors, therefore, would have no capability against Russia’s sea- or air-based deterrence capabilities. (Interestingly, at the time, Moscow did not object to the U.S. decision six years ago to deploy missile defenses at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base and Alaska’s Fort Greely to counteract the still-evolving North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile threat.)”