First Strike on Euro Missile Defense Aegis Ships? (Part 1)

(Read Part 2)

Navy Times reported September 28 that Navy planners are scrambling to work out deployment schedules and crewing arrangements now that the Obama administration has made sea-based Aegis missile defense the centerpiece of near-term U.S. efforts to protect its European and Middle Eastern allies from Iranian ballistic missiles.

This new Aegis “continental defense” mission raises an important question: how vulnerable are Aegis ships to a first strike by an adversary (read: Iran) seeking to clear the battle space before launching a missile attack? As Stephen Cimbala put it to the Navy Times, “You’ve put these commanders on a par with [ballistic-missile submarine] commanders…But unlike an SSBN commander, who is unlikely to be under immediate tactical threat, an Aegis cruiser or a [destroyer] could very easily be attacked by surface or subsurface craft, or aircraft, as part of a first strike.”

It should be stressed that the proposed scenario, i.e an Iranian first strike against Aegis ships followed by a missile salvo, is unlikely. Besides constituting an act of war that would elicit U.S. retaliation – deterrence, in a word – Iran will be hesitant to launch a first strike because such an action would signal an ostensible intent to launch missiles and therefore lead to a rapid U.S. counterstrike to prevent the missiles from getting off the ground in the first place.

Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to consider the potential first strike threat against Aegis because such an analysis may clarify thinking about the operational and procurement requirements necessary to execute President Obama’s revamped missile defense strategy.

Deployment Plans

At a September 17 Pentagon briefing, Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the United States would deploy “three [Aegis] ships at any given time in and around the Mediterranean and the North Sea, et cetera, to protect areas of interest, and then we would surge additional ships.” In addition, Cartwright said an X-band radar would be deployed closer to Iran, perhaps in The Caucasus, to offer early missile tracking.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has estimated that a Mediterranean-based Aegis system would protect southern Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and northern Egypt from Iranian missile attacks. An Aegis ship deployed to the Persian Gulf would similarly protect the Arab states. In February 2008, MDA assessed that four Aegis ships deployed (from left to right in image below) in the Adriatic Sea, Baltic Sea, Aegean Sea, and Black Sea would offer fairly comprehensive protection of Europe.

In sum, half a dozen (or fewer) Aegis ships, when combined with an X-band radar, would theoretically protect wide swaths of the Middle East and Europe.

On September 17, Cartwright also mentioned that additional Aegis ships would be surged to the region in a crisis situation to provide reinforcements. While this is possible, there are two things to keep in mind. First, it would take an Aegis ship about seven days to travel from Norfolk, Virginia to the Mediterranean. An Aegis reassigned from CENTCOM would arrive in about half that time. These delays might be unacceptable in a crisis situation. Second, reassigning Aegis ships to protect against an Iranian missile threat entails removing the ships from their regular duties. This might lead to vulnerabilities in the Pacific or elsewhere, particularly with the Aegis fleet already operating at 160 percent of its readiness rate.