Introduction
The 8th 3AF Missile defense conference took place in Paris between 3 and 6 July 2012, shortly after the NATO summit held in Chicago last May. At this summit, an interim missile defence capability to defend the eastern part of NATO European populations, territory and forces was declared. This is the first implementation step of the decision taken in Lisbon in 2010 to develop a full defence capability against ballistic missiles.
As outlined in the conference programme, discussions and information were expected about the decision made by NATO on the Territorial Missile Defense, the vision from nations on their national contributions to the NATO MD, the situation about cooperation between Russia and NATO as well as outside NATO.
The 8th 3AF Missile Defense conference definitely fulfilled these expectations and was a true success and underlined that although NATO made real progress with an interim capability, many challenges for a full Missile Defense capability in NATO and in Europe are still ahead, promising future exciting debates:
The 9th edition of the 3AF Conference will provide a timely opportunity for discussion in an open forum which focuses uniquely on Europe. It offers a mix of technical and non-technical, contributed and invited papers as well as descriptions of the many existing BMD programmes, including VIPs' talks and specific plenary sessions.
Sponsored by industry, the conference includes an exhibition where companies will showcase their systems and technologies. It is an unrivaled opportunity to meet customers, suppliers and decision makers, to exchange facts and opinions, and to listen to papers presented by world experts in missile defence.
The next 3AF Missile Defence conference is planned from 30th April to 3rd May 2013 and will bring new information and debate on this continuing challenge for Europe and European Industry.
We are looking forward to meeting you in Bucharest and to your contribution to our dialogue on "Challenges in Europe".
Yours Faithfully,
Yannick DEVOUASSOUX and Luc DINI
9th International Conference on Missile Defence "Challenges in Europe "
Programme Committee Chairmen