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8 In order to protect national territories, deployed forces and our friends and allies most effectively, the BMDS must be worldwide. As a result, international partners are critical to the success of our mission. The MDA International Strategy was approved by the Director in August 2007. This establishes the vision, goals, and strategic objectives for strengthening BMD efforts with our international partners and guides our international engagement to those relation-ships, which are mutually beneficial, effective, and efficient. The MDA International Strategy goals direct all interna- tional cooperative efforts, ensuring that each effort ad- vances the Agency towards accomplishment of its mission. These top-level goals are supported by strategic objectives that further define the goals and provide the foundation for implementation activities. While not all goals and objectives will be appropriate with each partner, the following goals lay out the general approach we intend to take. The MDA International Strategy goals are: Outreach: Build relationships as enablers to achieve international missile defense goals and communicate the importance of missile defense by promoting worldwide BMDS through the sharing of information with allies and partners. Capability and Interoperability: Promote missile defense capability and interoperability through appropri-ate means such as: the fielding of missile defense assets, identification and integration of U.S. and partner assets and systems to create a global ballistic missile defense system, and the promoting of interoperability among U.S. and part- ner systems on both bilateral and multilateral bases. MDA international Strategy and Current international Programs Technology: Identify and evaluate international technol- ogy in support of improved worldwide ballistic missile defense system capabilities. Investment: Identify and execute investment opportuni- ties with allies and partners. Workforce: Shape a qualified and capable workforce to execute the MDA International Strategy. International Programs MDA continues to aggressively build on a very success-ful program to involve more countries and forge inter- national partnerships. These partnerships span the globe and address all elements of the international strategy. To date, MDA has successfully negotiated five “framework” agreements, signed by the Secretary of Defense, to facilitate BMD cooperation with Japan, the United Kingdom, Aus-tralia, Denmark, and, most recently, Italy. Many coopera- tive activities are also ongoing or under consideration with several other nations. Negotiations are currently underway to locate up to ten silo-based long-range missile defense interceptors in Poland and a midcourse tracking and discrimination radar in the Czech Republic to provide an improved capability to defend the United States and our European allies against ballistic missile attack from the Middle East. The deploy-ment of U.S. missile defense assets in Europe represents a major U.S. initiative that will provide the capability to extend defensive coverage to Europe against longer-range ballistic missiles, enhance the collective security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance, and strengthen trans-Atlantic unity. In December 2007 Japan became the first ally to suc- cessfully intercept a ballistic missile target with the Aegis BMD system. Japan will continue to upgrade its remaining KONGO Class Aegis Destroyers through 2010. Japan also is upgrading its PATRIOT System fire units with PATRI- OT Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles and improved ground support equipment. In 2008, Japan is expected to begin co-production of the PAC-3 missile.