According to the NATO HQ press release on 9th August, NATO’s AEGIS coastal missile defence system update is completed.
As an important part of the cascaded missile defence system of NATO, the update is part of the United States European Phased Adaptive Approach to ballistic missile defence, which was announced in September 2009.
With the scope of the update, the United States fulfilled its commitment to NATO’s Ballistic Missile Defence by the temporary deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Deveselu in Romania. This update, which has been taking place across the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence system fleet, did not provide any offensive capability to the Aegis Ashore missile defence system.
The deployment of the THAAD battery to Deveselu was temporary while Aegis Ashore Romania was offline. The THAAD system will now be redeployed as planned.
NATO’s Aegis Ashore remains focused on potential threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area. It is purely a defensive system.
