By Peter Brookes

As Iran inches closer to crossing the nuclear weapons threshold and continues to advance its ballistic missile program, the dangers to Europe and America increase. Estimates predict that Tehran's missiles could hit Europe's entire landmass within 4 years, with parts of Europe already in Tehran's crosshairs.

An attack on Europe would almost certainly hit American assets on the Continent, and would be invoked by NATO as the same as an attack on the United States itself. As the commemorations of the 9/11 terrorist attacks begin, it should be remembered that it was on 9/12/2001 that for its first and only time, NATO invoked the sacred Article V clause to demonstrate the indivisibility of Euro-Atlantic security.

by Nile Gardiner, Ph.D. and Sally McNamara

Reports in the Polish media strongly suggest that the Obama Administration is about to abandon its plans for "third site" missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Abandoning the third site would represent a huge turnaround in American strategic thinking on a global missile defense system and a massive betrayal of two key U.S. allies in Eastern and Central Europe. Such a move would also significantly weaken America's ability to combat the growing threat posed by Iran's ballistic missile program and would hand a major propaganda victory to Moscow.

by Baker Spring

The Obama Administration's fiscal year 2010 proposal for missile defense scales back the number of ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) interceptors to be fielded in Alaska and California from the planned 44 to 30. The President's proposal also puts the program for fielding an additional 10 such interceptors in Poland on hold. Nevertheless, Defense Secretary Robert Gates still believes that the 2010 proposal still leaves America's ability to defend against a long-range missile threat from a rogue country "in a pretty good place."

By George Friedman

The Moscow summit between U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ended. As is almost always the case, the atmospherics were good, with the proper things said on all sides and statements and gestures of deep sincerity made. And as with all summits, those atmospherics are like the air: insubstantial and ultimately invisible. While there were indications of substantial movement, you would have needed a microscope to see them.

by Sally McNamara

On his first presidential visit to Moscow this week, Barack Obama continued to cast doubt on U.S. plans to deploy elements of its missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Since taking office, President Obama has conditioned his support for the "third site" deployment of 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic on a number of factors--its workability, its cost-effectiveness, and the provability of an Iranian nuclear threat. On a visit to Prague in April, President Obama gave a keynote speech focusing on total nuclear disarmament whereby missile defenses would be completely unnecessary.

by Baker Spring

On February 2, 2009, Iran successfully launched a satellite into orbit using a rocket with technology similar to that used in long-range ballistic missiles. On May 20, it test fired a 1,200-mile solid-fuel ballistic missile. North Korea attempted to launch a satellite on April 6 that, while failing to be placed in orbit, delivered its payload some 2,390 miles away in the Pacific Ocean. This was followed on May 25 by an explosive nuclear weapons test. Under these circumstances, with the ballistic missile threat to the U.S. and its allies clearly growing, common sense would dictate that the Obama Administration fully fund the missile defense program.

By Conn Carroll

In Monday's Washington Post, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote about North Korea's nuclear program: "More emphasis would need to be given to missile defense. It would be essential to redesign the American deterrent strategy in a world of multiple nuclear powers—a challenge unprecedented in our experience."

The eventual existence of "multiple nuclear powers" has long been a driving force of Heritage Foundation analysis of missile defense. Last March, Heritage fellow Baker Spring summed up the findings of nuclear war games conducted by policy experts in 2004 and 2005:

It is common knowledge that Russia is highly critical of the USA's plans to build missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic. It is also well known that President Barack Obama is ambivalent about the agreements, signed while George Bush was still in office. Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country seeks "international cooperation" between Russia and the U.S. over launching a third missile defense site in Central Europe.

An excerpt of Lavrov's statement, via Itar-Tass:

"In the course of the discussion on the third launch area for the global missile defence, the United States did not assume obligations regarding the terms of access to the third launch area facilities by Russian officials.

On March 30, 2009, Riki Ellison, Chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) informed the membership of MDAA that a letter has been sent to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates urging him to make sure all of our missile defense assets are in place to protect Alaska, Hawaii and regions of the United States prior to the North Korea "Space Launch" and missile test scheduled for later this week. The letter to Secretary Gates said:

by James Phillips and Baker Spring

Iran announced yesterday that it had successfully launched its first domestically produced satellite into orbit using an Iranian-built rocket. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed in a televised speech that "the official presence of the Islamic Republic was registered in space." This technological milestone, combined with Iran's accelerating efforts to enrich the uranium required for a nuclear weapon, is extremely worrisome. Only ten other countries have successfully launched satellites into orbit. Iran's new satellite-launching capability demonstrates rapid progress toward developing a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)--an advancement that would greatly extend Tehran's military reach. Iran's growing missile capability strengthens the case for making missile defense a high priority for the United States and its allies.