Read also: Norway accepted the missile as early as 2007

Read embassy documents relating to this matter to the right of the article. Read all embassy documents we have published on this site .

Barack Obama announced his strategy and plans for U.S. missile defense in 2009.

Obama is abandoning some of the most advanced weapons plans in the previous president's missile defense program, and he stopped efforts to build a radar in the Czech Republic and deploy ten interceptor missiles in Poland.

Sudden stop of the plans in the Czech Republic and Poland were welcomed by the Norwegian government. It was created an impression that the U.S. is now called for a scaled-down, cheaper European version of the global missile defense.

Read also: NATO joint missile defense

Will be just as expensive

Just before Obama announced his plans, the U.S. State Department sent out a background memo to embassies worldwide told to inform the country's political allies, the Wikileaks documents Aftenposten have access to.

In a confidential annex is the United States closer to what the decision entails. If the costs for the European application states that the overall, long-term costs "will be about the same as the previous program."

In a report from the Congressional Budget Office from 2009 entered the costs over a 20 year period for four different European options. Cost estimates ranged between 9 and 22 billion dollars (54 to 132 billion).

The most expensive option included the permanent deployment of the defense system on warships in European waters and includes the construction of ships.

Plans for 320 missiles

According to a report from the U.S. Auditor General (GAO) from December, it may in time be deployed as many as 320 interceptor missiles on European territory.

According to U.S. plans, the country's European part of the missile defense be considered America's national contributions to NATO's missile defense.

NATO is working on a command and control structure in order to connect the U.S. and other NATO countries' contributions to missile defense. It will cost member states around 1.6 billion over the next few years.

NATO costs

NATO has also built up its own limited missile defense system called ALTBMD (Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense).

According to NATO Secretary General Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance's investments so far cost 800 million euros, or around 6.4 billion.

It's never been made public any figures for what NATO's plans for an effective missile defense for all the alliance's member states can come to cost.

But a NATO-based missile shield against all rocket threats are examined in several rounds.

A wikileaksdokument Aftenposten has gained access to show that NATO has been planning with the budget implications of American proportions.

In the note, written by the U.S. Embassy to NATO and submitted to the U.S. State Department after a budget meeting of NATO in 2007, revealed very high numbers:

"The cost of a NATO missile defense will be between 8 and 27 billion euros."

That means a total cost of between 64 and 216 billion. These are cost estimates that have not previously been publicly known.

106 billion dollars

According to the note taking this cost estimate does not account for U.S. plans to deploy a significant missile defense in Europe.

The European part of missile defense, constitutes only a part of U.S. global defense system. There are no official figures indicating the total cost of the entire program.

U.S. Auditor General, GAO, however, has estimated that the missile defense, in the period from 2002 until 2013 will cost U.S. taxpayers 106 billion dollars, or 630 billion after today's dollar.

What amount you have coming up in around 2020 when the European capabilities should be fully developed, is not known.