Key to Column Numbering

W Written Answers, House of Commons WS Written Ministerial Statements, House of Commons WA Written Answer, House of Lords Column number with no letters Oral Proceedings in the House of Commons

Ballistic Missile Defence

• Global Security: Russia, House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Second Report, HC 51 of 2007-08, 25 November 2007, Excerpts on Missile Defence
• Response of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, to the Foreign Affairs Committee Report on Global Security: Russia, Cm 7305, February 2008
• Armed Forces: US Missile Defence, House of Lords, Debate, 10 Jan 2008, Column 949, Excerpts
• Missile Defence, Written Answers, December 2007 - February, 2008

Global Security: Russia, House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Second Report, HC 51 of 2007-08, 25 November 2007, Excerpts on Missile Defence

Missile defence

265. The row which erupted with Russia in 2007 over planned anti-ballistic missile defence (BMD) deployments in Europe began with the announcement by the US Department of Defense in January that the US was opening talks with the Czech Republic and Poland on the deployment there of elements of its BMD system.[562] US officials had given initial indications in March 2006 that sites in Central Europe were being considered for BMD deployments. The planned US deployments in Central Europe would form part of the integrated multi-continental and multi-faceted BMD system which is aimed against the perceived post-Cold War threat of ballistic missile acquisition and use by rogue states or terrorists. President George W. Bush promised to develop such a system during his 2000 presidential election campaign and announced the plans as President in December 2002. The Bush Administration's BMD plans build on those for National Missile Defense set out by former President Clinton in 1999, but they are more ambitious, aiming to cover not only the continental US but also US allies and US troops deployed overseas, and to be able to intercept all types and ranges of ballistic missile at any point during a missile's trajectory. His wish to develop such a system caused President Bush, after negotiations with Russia had failed, to announce in December 2001 the United States' unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The ABM Treaty had placed severe limits on the deployment of BMD systems by the US and USSR, in order to sustain the form of stability that came with mutually assured destruction between the then superpowers.