BUCHAREST — US Vice President Joe Biden, on a three-day trip to Eastern Europe, said Thursday that Romania had added its support to that of Poland for a new anti-missile system the United States is planning for the region.

A day after Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had described Washington's projected new SM-3 anti-missile system as "very interesting, and needed," Biden said that Romania, too, embraced "the new missile defence architecture".

SM-3 replaces a plan by the former George W. Bush administration for a so-called missile shield, comprising missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic, by 2013.

Bush's successor Barack Obama said that after a rethink, and the realisation that Iran was developing its own missiles more slowly than anticipated, his administration was opting for a more flexible system.

When Barack Obama scrapped the Bush Administration's plans for missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, many saw the decision as an abandonment of Poland and the Czech Republic. Now, news that missile defenses will be installed in Poland is helping soothe hurt feelings.

BUCHAREST, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday voiced his appreciation for the Romanian government's endorsement of the new missile shield plan initiated by the Obama administration.

Biden, at a joint press conference with Romanian President Traian Basescu, stressed that the United States and Romania are allies and partners within NATO.

We are going to cancel a defense that takes five years to mount, because the threat will not materialize for five years. And we will not deploy land-based interceptors in Europe, because our new plan is to deploy land-based interceptors in Europe.

Stalin tested Truman with the Berlin Blockade, and Truman held fast. Khrushchev tested Kennedy, and in the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy refused to blink. In 1983, Andropov took the measure of Reagan, and, defying millions in the street (who are now the Obama base), Reagan did not blink. Last week, the Iranian president and the Russian prime minister put Mr. Obama to the test, and he blinked not once but twice

Originally posted by poedxsoldiervet
reply to post by ZenOnKwalsky

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I respect that, but you dont want our army there? We have an Airforce base in turkey... would that be acceptable?

BUCHAREST, Oct 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on central and east European states on Thursday to become more involved in fighting security threats and work closer with their former Soviet bloc peers outside western alliances.

The United States is keen to secure the region's backing for revamped plans for a missile defence system, after September's decision to scrap Bush-era solutions irked Poland and the Czech Republic, where elements of it would have been located.

BUCHAREST, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The new missile shield proposed by President Barack Obama takes into account the need to counter some new threats and the United States will not conclude agreements beyond the will of their allies in Central Europe, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said here on Thursday.

"We are confronted with new threats, we need a new vision how we can tackle them, therefore the decision was taken to create a new missile shield system and that is why it is so important that the countries in Central Europe have their voice heard," said Biden while delivering a speech at the Bucharest University Central Library.

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said that the new system, which replaces a bulkier version previously planned for the region, was “interesting” and “necessary”, and affirmed that Poland was willing to co-operate with the plans.

Later, Bogdan Aurescu, from the Romanian foreign ministry said: "The new system protects the whole of the Romanian territory against possible missile attacks, and this is very important."

PRAGUE — The Czech Republic agreed on Friday to host elements of the reformulated American missile defense system after Vice President Joseph R. Biden flew here to patch up relations damaged when President Obama canceled plans to deploy a sophisticated radar station on Czech soil.

The transformation of America’s security architecture for eastern Europe has thrown Romania into the spotlight as a key strategic location for defence against the threat of medium-range ballistic missiles.

US vice president Joe Biden made the first moves into this direction when, on a recent visit to Bucharest, he welcomed Romania’s “embrace” of the new US proposals for combating short and medium range airborne weaponry.

But it was unclear whether this could translate into Romania hosting either a land-based anti-missile defence system or whether the Black Sea itself could support US or US-allied ships bent on defending the region against a missile assault.