A recent Economist editorial "Missile Defence in Europe - Pie in the Sky" from September 19-25 argued the following:
"Although Poles may bemoan the timing, America's calendar may be shaped by the forthcoming UN General Assembly. Russia and China have been reluctant to agree to further sanctions or other pressure on Iran. Mr Obama may hope that by demonstrating a willingness to engage Russia in Europe he might have a better chance of co-operation in the Middle East. "But the big task for America now is to reassure the Poles and other twitchy ex-communist countries such as the Baltic states, that it remains committed to their defence. It stresses that plenty of high-level structures exist to discuss these worries and that NATO is actively rethinking its plans for defence in the east. The question is what will really be on offer in these discussions. The east European countries, squeezed between an increasingly close Russian-German friendship, look anxiously towards America to safeguard their interests. But is America looking at them?"
Gordon Hahn's rebuttal:
The fact is that the Obama Administration has looked out for Polish and Czech interests in refashioning its missile defense plans. At the same time it is taking Russia's interests into account.
The radar-directed interceptor missile defense system proposed by Bush Administration has been scrapped in favor of a mobile Aegis-based and possibly sea-based system. This mixed complex of missile defense basing modes will allow the rapid reconfiguration and restationing of land and sea-based systems to meet changing nuclear missile capacities and threats. In addition, U.S. officials have also entertained supplementing this system by providing Poland and the Czech Republic with Patriot missile systems. The Patriot system would provide for their defense as long as the number of Iranian missiles does not exceed a dozen or more. However, it does not provide all of U.S. territory with the potential redundancy that a completed system of the kind proposed by the Bush Administration would. The latter system would have given U.S. interceptors two chances at intercepting any incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles; one for the interceptors based in Eastern Europe during the early stage of attacking missiles' flight immediately after takeoff and a second by interceptors based in Alaska and California.
Another problem is that the Aegis-based systems might be sufficient to intercept Russian missiles in their early trajectory, thus posing a threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent. Moreover, any Patriot missile defense systems, just like the earlier proposed interceptor systems, would be based 'in-country' and therefore it would violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act that forbids placement of NATO troops or weapons systems on the territories of new NATO member-countries.
In sum, the current U.S. administration has only temporarily resolved the issue of missile defense in light of the emerging Iranian threat and NATO expansion without Russia. Importantly, however, its has signaled American good will towards Moscow. Now it must overcome the contradiction between our obligation to the security of Eastern European countries and NATO expansion without Russia by working with all the affected countries - NATO members and non-NATO members, especially Russia - in guaranteeing not just Western security but in creating an Atlantic-Eurasian security community, including Russia, in the face of the growing Iranian and other state and non-state security threats.
Article in question
The Economist
September 19-25, 2009
Missile defence in Europe
Pie in the sky
America calls off plans for missile defence in Europe, pleasing
peaceniks but worrying hawks
MAYBE some jam tomorrow, but none today. That is the American message
to its most stalwart allies in the ex-communist world as Barack
Obama's administration shelves plans to deploy ten interceptor
rockets in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
The timing of the announcement is poor, coming on September 17th, the
anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland in 1939. In a country
highly tuned to symbolic snubs, it matters that nobody in Washington
seemed to know or care about that.
The news was broken clumsily too: the Czech prime minister was woken
by a brief phone call from Mr Obama the night before the decision was
made public. Poland is at least gaining some promise of a beefed up
American contribution to its security. The Czech Republic receives
nothing, for now, in exchange for its loyalty to a controversial
scheme that was supposedly a symbol of America's commitment to the
region. Atlanticist politicians in Prague feel humiliated by that.
From a practical point of view, the American change of plan is
understandable. The technology of the planned scheme was unproven,
and the Iranian threat it was supposed to counter only nascent. "A
scheme that doesn't work, against a threat that doesn't exist, in
countries that don't want it" was how Zbigniew Brzezinski, the
hawkish former national security adviser to the Carter
administration, has described it. As with the decision to deploy
cruise and Pershing missiles in Western Europe in the 1980s,
something that was meant to strengthen the Atlantic alliance ended up
putting it under strain. Czech and Polish public opinion was
increasingly sceptical, or outright hostile to the bases. Other
countries worried that pro-American hawks in ex-communist countries
were risking an unnecessary confrontation with Russia.
America's new plan is different. Mr Obama described it as a
"stronger, smarter, swifter" defence of American forces in Europe and
of American allies. Reinforcing existing defences against possible
long-range Iranian missiles is seen as a problem for the future,
given that America now says the Iranians are working more on short-
and medium-range missiles than on long-range ones. For now, the extra
deployments will be less capable sea-based Aegis missiles which could
shoot down any medium-range Iranian missiles aimed at Europe. After
2015, with further development, the scheme could involve land-based
versions of the SM3 missile that would, the Pentagon says, ultimately
cover all of Europe by 2018.
That would probably start off in bases closer to Iran but it might
include central Europe too. "We will look forward to working with
Poland about how they might fit into that," says a senior State
Department official. If a future Czech government wanted to take
part, it would also receive a sympathetic hearing.
The administration has tried to sweeten the pill by reiterating a
promise to place a battery of Patriot short-range missiles to defend
Warsaw. Poles expect that these will be American-financed, part of
NATO's commitment to the country's defence, and fully integrated with
Poland's own air-defence system. American officials are more cagey,
saying only that there is still plenty to discuss.
Russia has welcomed the decision to shelve the existing scheme. It is
unlikely to be pleased about any replacements based anywhere in the
former Soviet empire, which the president, Dmitry Medvedev, has
described as a sphere of Russian "privileged interests". If America
can obtain Russian help in squeezing Iran's nuclear and missile
programmes, and if Russia also backs down on its threatened
deployment of missiles in the Kaliningrad region, which borders
Poland, it would be easy for the administration to walk away even
further away from missile defence.
Although Poles may bemoan the timing, America's calendar may be
shaped by the forthcoming UN General Assembly. Russia and China have
been reluctant to agree to further sanctions or other pressure on
Iran. Mr Obama may hope that by demonstrating a willingness to engage
Russia in Europe he might have a better chance of co-operation in the
Middle East.
But the big task for America now is to reassure the Poles and other
twitchy ex-communist countries such as the Baltic states, that it
remains committed to their defence. It stresses that plenty of
high-level structures exist to discuss these worries and that NATO is
actively rethinking its plans for defence in the east. The question
is what will really be on offer in these discussions. The east
European countries, squeezed between an increasingly close
Russian-German friendship, look anxiously towards America to
safeguard their interests. But is America looking at them?
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