Poland to build its own missile shield

WARSAW - Agence France-Presse

FM Radoslaw Sikorski vows to build a shield worth 33.6 billion euros. REUTERS photo

Poland said March 20 it would spend 33.6 billion euros to set up its own missile shield, days after the U.S. announced it was ready to abandon the final phase of the European missile defense system.

“We will create our own air defense system. Our national missile shield, with the American shield, the elements of which will be on our territory by 2018 and will make up part of the NATO system,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Parliament in his annual address outlining this EU and NATO member’s foreign policy priorities.

“We will build up our deterrence forces - we will procure missiles, helicopters, armored personnel carrier, submarines and drones,” Sikorski said, stressing that “the trans-Atlantic alliance will remain our principle guarantor of security.” 

U.S. President Barack Obama’s current plan for Europe envisages the shield as being made up of a super-powerful radar deployed in Turkey, SM-3 IIA interceptors missiles mounted aboard frigates stationed in the Mediterranean and 24 missile interceptors based in Poland and as many in Romania.