6th Fleet Focus: Port Search

There are all kinds of good reasons why Rota, Spain would be a great place to forward station AEGIS BMD ships - the main reason being Spain deploys AEGIS ships and Rota can support that. Location, location, location though... From Navy Times.

The Navy is in talks with European countries about where and when it could forward-deploy the surface ships that will be assigned standing patrols to defend the continent from ballistic missiles, the commander of 6th Fleet said June 14.

But Vice Adm. Harry Harris, the Navy’s No. 2 commander for Europe, said that because the negotiations were still taking place, he would not name the countries under consideration.

“Many locations are being looked at,” he said. “I can’t go into the locations because we haven’t decided on one yet; there are location and country-to-country issues and all that, but certainly we’re looking at it — and no decision has been made yet, but it’s certainly something that’s on the table.”

But where exactly?

So, where could the Navy be looking? One spot likely high on commanders’ list is Gaeta, Italy, which is already the home port for Harris’ flagship, the amphibious command ship Mount Whitney, and has hosted U.S. and NATO warships since 1967.

Another contender could be Rota, Spain, where the U.S. Navy has shared a base with the Spanish navy since 1953. Although it’s less geographically convenient than Italy, Rota has the advantage of having more repair facilities, which American ships could share with their Spanish hosts.

If it was me, I'd advocate like hell for Rota and tell Congress that we also need a BMD tender to provide forward capability to the Eastern Med. It is probably more expensive, but maybe by not as much as you think, to build onto the existing facilities at Rota and build a tender for forward support. While the operation of the tender will probably be expensive, someone please explain why we won't absolutely require a BMD tender in the Pacific at some point in the future anyway.

Might as well start discussing it now.