MUNICH - European political and defense officials say any deployment of a land-based allied missile defense system on their territory is unthinkable.

This, they argue, implies that the United States must shift the focus of its national missile defense plans to sea-based capabilities sooner rather than later if it has any hope of selling the idea to the European public.

"Accept elements of a land-based allied missile defense on Portuguese territory? Absolutely not," Julio Castro Caldas, Portugal's defense minister, told DefenseNews.com Feb. 4. "I wouldn't even dare raise the subject before our parliament."

A French Defense Ministry official said, "National missile defense? Don't even talk to us about it right now."

Echoing this sentiment, Miguel Aguirre de Cárcer, director of Spanish-U.S. relations, security and disarmament at Spain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the so-called allied missile defense (AMD) debate should be framed in terms of a theater missile defense for Europe. "Such a missile defense, with a much more limited scope, would make more sense to discuss," he said.

DefenseNews.com spoke to Caldas, de Cárcer and others during the annual gathering here Feb. 3-4 of defense and security leaders from across Europe, Asia and North America known as the Wehrkunde conference. Its discussions revolved around two central themes: U.S. plans for a national missile defense and its potential extension to NATO countries, and the West's security relations with Russia in light of existing nonproliferation treaties.

Nowhere is the topic of missile defense more sensitive in Europe than in Germany, where pacifist sentiment is strong and whose leaders are ever-worried about Russian reaction to the defense plans of NATO and, increasingly, to those of the European Union. Both organizations are reviewing how to expand their memberships within the next five years and seek closer defense-planning links with each other.

"To put a land-based AMD on German soil is out of the question - now or in the future. Neither our public or government would accept it," said Detlef Puhl, chief spokesman for Germany's Defense Ministry. "To do so would blow NATO apart."

Not all NATO allies are so staunch in their opposition to hosting a land-based AMD in Europe. The United Kingdom and Washington, for example, are exploring the possibility of linking U.K.-based radar sites to the U.S. national missile defense system, while several southern European allies are open to discussions.

Giampaolo di Paola, chief of cabinet at Italy's Defense Ministry, told DefenseNews.com Feb. 3: "Ideally, it is our task to first seek a consensus on the European level whether we would support either a land-based or sea-based missile defense, and then pursue a good and close dialogue with the United States."

And Müjdat Kayayerli, a member of Turkey's parliament, said Ankara supports U.S. plans for a national missile defense "that is either land-based or sea-based, whatever is technically possible. Our country is situated next to several crisis areas and we feel the need to be protected by such a system as a member of NATO."

But given Germany's weight in the European Union and in NATO, its position on AMD will be critical.

"Germany's position is key to any U.S.-Europe national missile defense development. But its leaders aren't thinking about this enough in concrete terms because they are still wrapped up in their debate about domestic defense funding and reform, as well as German-Russian relations," Catherine McArdle Kelleher, director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, said Feb. 4.

Indeed, Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor, told Wehrkunde participants that "dialogue with Russia is critical regarding all these issues."

One thing Schroeder's government does not want is to antagonize Russia by stationing a missile defense system on German territory.

Asked if this attitude in Berlin and elsewhere means the United States has to focus on sea-based capabilities, Detlef said: "Yes. It does."