It was a conference call from the Air Force General, Kevin Chilton, the head of US Strategic Command, and Marine General James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They told him the conditions were “ripe” to launch what can now be disclosed was a secret test of America’s anti-satellite weapons, Washington’s first such strike in space for 23 years. That night, the US navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruiser, USS Lake Erie, scored a direct hit on an American spy satellite, known as USA 193. The missile used, a highly sophisticated SM-3, took about three minutes to climb 150 miles above the Earth, where it flew past the satellite before turning back and destroying the target at an impact speed of 22,000mph.
The strike came about a year after the Chinese government had launched its own satellithe attack, which started a secret “space war”, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. For months the two super powers had been engaged in a private and increasingly acrimonious row over China’s use of weapons in space – an international taboo since President Ronald Reagan abandoned the “star wars” programme in the 1980s.
The clash began on Jan 11, 2007, when Beijing shocked the world – including George W Bush’s White House – by destroying a Chinese weather satellite with a ballistic missile. "
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NATO Missile Defense for Europe
NATO has agreed to provide ballistic missile defense or BMD for all of Europe. This NATO BMD will protect NATO (European and American) military forces in Europe. It will also – for the very first time – protect the civilian population throughout Europe from ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction launched from the Middle East.
Much of this NATO missile defense for Europe – known as the European Phased Adaptive Approach – will actually be provided by the United States armed forces. This will include seaborne AEGIS missile defense on board US Navy ships in the Mediterranean, as well as land based radars and interceptor missiles.
This e-book describes how NATO missile defense for Europe will be organized and implemented.
