WARSAW: If a US missile shield goes ahead in Europe as planned it will be a major shift towards a defensive strategy of deterrence in a new era of nuclear proliferation and rogue regimes, analysts said.

“The adoption of missile defence in Poland would imply a significant shift in Western strategic thinking,” Benjamin Schreer, an analyst at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs said.

“With new terrorist threats and particularly the proliferation of ballistic missile systems and nuclear weapons, the West’s offence-based security and deterrence strategy is no longer sufficient – a new mix including offensive and defensive elements is necessary,” he said.

The Czech Republic and Poland have difficult decisions to make on hosting parts of the shield, amid Russian fury at the prospect of US interceptor missiles based so close to its borders.

Washington is currently in negotiations with Warsaw to install 10 interceptor missile sites in Poland by 2012 to ward off potential attacks by so-called rogue states, notably Iran.

The plan calls for associated radar stations in the Czech Republic.

But Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday that Poland and the Czech Republic were in no rush to conclude negotiations with Washington.

“It is not a race against time. The essential thing is to get what we want from the negotiation, for the Polish as well as the Czech sides,” Tusk told a joint news conference with his Czech counterpart, Mirek Topolanek.

British expert Tim Williams agreed the shield would be a major departure from current “offensive” policy and said missile defence in eastern Europe was clearly seen as “the way to go” in an era of shadowy nuclear proliferation.

“It moves from the current practice of deterrence with offensive weapons to deterrence by defence and denial – denying your enemy the ability to strike,” Williams, from the Royal United Services Institute, said.

“It could be the first step in a new global security architecture,” he added.

Schreer went even further, suggesting that a shift to missile defence systems from purely offensive capabilities could “reduce the West’s reliance on nuclear weapons as a primary means of deterrence”. —AFP