NATO's Ballistic Missile Defence and Turkey

Abstract

At the Lisbon Summit meeting of NATO in November 2010, the United States expressed its desire to share with its allies the missile defense capabilities that it had developed since the 1990s vis-a-vis the threat perceived from the missile capabilities of North Korea and Iran. The Summit has also become a platform where Turkey's concerns about the "Missile Shield" project were discussed extensively. This article aims to shed light, first of all, to the background of the development and expansion of the missile defense project of the United States both at national and global scale. In the same vein, technological characteristics and operational principles of air defense systems will be presented. Then, the article will highlight the deliberations between Turkey and the United States since the 1990s with respect to the deployment of air defense systems on Turkish territory. Finally, Turkey's place in the debate concerning the deployment of the "Missile Shield" in the NATO countries will be discussed with specific references to the role that Turkey could play in enhancing the defensive as well as deterrent capability of the Alliance.