AEGIS BMD in the Baltic?

There is a subscription article in Defense News this morning titled New Missile Plan Could Put Aegis Cruisers In Baltic Sea, fairly self-explanatory. This is an interesting view.

The deployment in the Baltic Sea of Aegis-class warships equipped with SM-3 interceptors is quite likely, said Lt. Cmdr. Juha-Antero Puistola from the Finnish Armed Forces' National Defense College's Department of Strategic and Defense Studies.

"If the idea is to create this type of mobile [missile] platform, then some of the ships can well be placed in the Baltic. The Aegis cruisers have always been moved wherever they are needed," Puistola said.

However, it is more likely the Aegis ships would only be deployed to the Baltic Sea in the event of a missile threat. From Russia's viewpoint, the use of the Baltic Sea as part of the proposed new U.S. missile defense strategy could be a lesser evil than having a permanent missile base in Poland, Puistola said.

It goes on to say:

"What is certain from what U.S. officials are saying is that the U.S. wants to deploy more Patriot PAC-3 missiles in Europe. These will be integrated into a multilayered NATO missile shield grid to cover the entire continent of Europe. The Baltic states may ask or be asked to deploy PAC-3s. Lithuania would certainly be interested," the analyst said.

They were talking PAC-3s for Europe in the House last week, so this does appear to be the plan. The article concludes by noting the US is upgrading the base at Vardo, Norway, which is about 42 miles from the Russian border.

The US Navy doesn't often send ships into the Baltic Sea, almost always for a specific exercise and lately, the Russian Navy has been there. It will be interesting how Russia responds the first time an AEGIS BMD ship simply sails into the Baltic on a patrol, because the Russian media will likely act like the US media does when Russia sends a ship to Cuba.

But how will the Russian government respond? I don't know. I'm having trouble figuring out why US naval operations in the Baltic Sea is more favorable for Russia than a radar / interceptor site in Poland.