US leaders fear that making concessions regarding BMD could encourage Russia, Iran, China, North Korea to make additional demands regarding US BMD and other issues.

       On January 15, the IAEA confirmed that Iran had met its obligations for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to take effect, an assessment the other governments accepted the following day, launching Implementation Day of the agreement. If implemented without circumvention, the deal would decrease the prospects of Iran’s developing nuclear weapons for at least a decade. Russian leaders, whose opposition to the US national ballistic missile defense (BMD) program and its regional counterparts remains unrelenting, have cited this reduced Iranian threat to call on US to suspend building its BMD systems in Europe and elsewhere.

       US officials insist that the alliance will continue its planned BMD deployments. They note that the JCPOA does not directly limit Iran’s missile program, since the Western powers abandoned efforts towards this end to achieve a narrower deal that focuses constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. The UN Security Council resolution supporting the resolution merely obliges other countries to refrain from providing missile technologies to Iran, but gives Teheran access to billions of dollars of sanctioned funds, some of which Iran could use to strengthen its missile forces. As a result, Iran could deliver conventional (non-nuclear) warheads against an increasing range of targets and, should it violate the nuclear agreement or launch a nuclear program after the JOPA expires in 15 years, Tehran would have a ready-made means of delivering nuclear warheads

       US leaders also fear that making concessions regarding BMD could encourage Russia, Iran, China, North Korea to make additional demands regarding US BMD and other issues. However, proposals to reorient US missile defenses in Europe to target Russian missiles (not the ICBMs, which are too fast and numerous for US defenses to defeat, but the shorter-range and slower moving tactical missiles, which might be used to target NATO forces and bases in Europe) have not gained support in Europe and so will probably not be discussed at this year’s NATO summit in Warsaw.

       Richard Weitz is Director and Senior Fellow at Center for Political-Military Analysis of Hudson Institute.

       Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

       Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.