How are we antiaircraft defense in Portugal? “We are screwed”
Air defense systems have played a key role in Ukraine’s war. We went to see the situation in Portugal – which is not well. “We would have to spend a lot of money [para corrigir isto]we are talking about billions and just to protect the city of Lisbon.” And there are more problems besides money
It’s a bright sunny day when the sirens start to sound – it’s a sign of what’s to come: five supersonic missiles were launched towards strategic targets in the city of Lisbon. Faced with this hypothetical and disastrous scenario, what can our Armed Forces do? “We are screwed”, says Major General Agostinho Costa to CNN Portugal. “We have no possible defense, zero. The capacity of antiaircraft defense in Portugal is nil. We don’t have it and never had it, by the way.”
The major-general explains that the air defense of Portuguese territory is the responsibility of the Air Force and combines air superiority aircraft, such as the F-16, with missiles. “The problem is that the Air Force has no missiles. What we have in terms of air defense are, fundamentally, the F-16s. In terms of missiles, we have neither long-range nor medium-range missiles. We only have Army stingers. They are means of short-range air defense, used in plain sight, when the system operator does the To lock of the target and fires. However, they are typically used for defense by ground forces. For this case, they are not relevant”, considers the Major General.
In turn, Major General Agostinho Costa stresses that the ships have anti-aircraft defense systems “by nature”. “The MEKO frigates, of the Vasco da Gama class, have missiles and cannons for this purpose. However, it serves only for the defense of the ship itself.”
At a time when Europe is tormented by a conflict the like of which it has not seen in the 21st century, the Portuguese scenario seems, at first sight, dramatic. Fixing it, points out Agostinho Costa, is also very difficult and expensive. “We would have to spend a lot of money, we are talking about billions and just to protect the city of Lisbon. The capital is, of course, our most critical infrastructure. It is where the political power is, the Bank of Portugal and other centers of power. If Lisbon were attacked, the country would be completely decapitated.”
For Agostinho Costa, if the city of Lisbon were protected by a battery of NASAMS systems “it would already be something” (each battery has six units). But it wouldn’t be perfect. “The ideal would be an artillery group, with three batteries, to have redundancy. It is not enough, however, to have a long-range system, we must also have a short-range system. In the West, it would be good to have NASAMS systems, with a medium range, around 40 kilometers, integrated with the Patriot systems, which already have a range of 150, 200 kilometers. Basically, you have to have a system made up of systems.” The costs are, in fact, astronomical: a single battery of Patriots costs a billion dollars, around 926 million euros.
Starting from the events in Ukraine, like the recent tragedy in Dnipro, Agostinho Costa has another recommendation. “The systems have to be placed outside the city and not like we are seeing in Ukraine, where the systems are inside the city and then dramas happen like in Dnipro. When the battle is done over the city, the missiles are not in the air.”
“The air defense paradigm has changed”
For Agostinho Costa, the predictions that Portugal did not face any threat to its territory led to a reduction in investment in the Defense sector. “We have been very distracted. It was this idea that led a good part of the countries of Europe to disarm and transform their armed forces into expeditionary armed forces. We bought 36 tanks from the Netherlands because The Hague understood that these were no longer needed. Now they have none”, he says, noting that the Portuguese Air Force is not synchronized with the current strategic environment.
“Our Air Force has always based the country’s air defense on planes, that is its concept. Today, the type of threat is different, the planned environment has changed. Since the survival of smart munitions in the First Gulf War, the paradigm of air defense has changed. We still have an Air Force directed towards a conflict like the Second World War, in which the only threat is airplanes”, he explains.
“What we see in the war in Ukraine is planes flying very low, doing very limited close air flights. All Russian campaigns are fundamentally missile campaigns. It’s a smart munitions war. Air defense is geared towards missiles, drones and artillery rockets. The planes have a very small footprint, which means that we have to review the entire paradigm of our air defense”, continues Agostinho Costa.
However, the major-general warns Europe not to enter into an “arms drift” without first analyzing the current context. “We have to get out of this conflict. this war is a case study. We are witnessing a hybrid war, in which we are seeing fighting alongside regular forces, international legions and private military companies, the latter something we have never seen, but also the very intense application of smart munitions. Before buying equipment, we should reflect a little”, recommends the expert.