Udall, Bennet, Lamborn Fight to Keep Missile Defense Center in Colorado Springs

U.S. Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, and U.S. Representative Doug Lamborn are urging the Defense Department not to move the U.S. Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center out of Colorado Springs.

In a letter to Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the lawmakers said they are troubled by rumors that the MDA might move the center out of Colorado Springs, a decision they argued could not only cost the region jobs but could also degrade the work the center does to support the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System. The system’s primary partners, including Cheyenne Mountain, USNORTHCOM, SMDC/ARSTRAT, JFCC-IMD, and AFSPC, all are located in Colorado Springs.

Orbital Successfully Launches Medium Range Target for Joint U.S./Japan Missile Defense Test

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced today that it successfully launched a Medium Range Target (MRT) vehicle under a direct contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The MRT vehicle served as an intercept target for the Japanese Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system. It was launched yesterday, October 28, 2010, from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii and flew on a northwestern trajectory. The MRT vehicle was successfully intercepted by the Japanese Navy’s Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor system before it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. Yesterday’s launch was the ninth overall mission for Orbital’s MRT program, all of which have been successful. Of the nine missions, seven were launched in support of the Aegis BMD test program, including four for the Japanese test program.

Turkey Says It Won’t Block NATO Plan

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Sunday it was “out of the question” for Turkey to oppose security measures the North Atlantic Treaty Organization considers necessary, apparently ruling out any move to block a missile shield the U.S. is proposing for the military alliance.

N. Korea border skirmish likely an accident

 

An exchange of gunfire across the heavily armed border between the two Koreas last week was likely an accident and not a deliberate provocation by the prickly North, a top lawmaker and former army general said on Monday.

The South Korean capital Seoul, about 60 miles south of the demilitarized zone, is on heightened alert ahead of next week’s G20 summit over concerns Pyongyang may try to create an incident to embarrass its rival.

Washington has pressed Beijing to use its influence over the secretive state not to create an incident in the run up to the summit, a senior U.S. official said in China, where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is holding talks with Chinese officials.

Hwang Jin Ha, who sits on parliament’s intelligence and North Korea committees, said Friday’s skirmish was probably unintentional, doubting Pyongyang had meant it as part of a strategy to win concessions from the outside world.

Russia-NATO to ‘reach agreement on disputed issues’

Russia and NATO will do their best to reach compromises on the most controversial issues, the chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said on Monday.

Following talks with NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, Adm. James G. Stavridis, who is currently on his visit to Russia as a NATO delegation member, Makarov said that they had mainly focused on missile defense issues.

He also said they had discussed counter-terrorism, Afghanistan and piracy.

German foreign minister calls for NATO-Russia missile defense system

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle kicked off a three-day tour of former Soviet republics in Moscow on Monday, where he called for a joint NATO-Russia missile defense system to be put in place.

Westerwelle’s remarks came ahead of a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

In October, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to try and find common ground ahead of a NATO summit in Lisbon later this month.

Medvedev announced he would attend the summit and said he was open cooperating with NATO on a missile defense system, but Russia was still wary of the idea.