A short fuse on America's missile defences?

18:41 GMT +00:00

Posted by:
Economist.com

Categories:
Europe and America

"THE job of NATO used to be straightforward," The Economist said recently. "Keep the Americans in, keep the Germans down and the Russians out." Things look rather different now: Germany is on the rise, the Russians are involved in discussions about security policy, and there are lingering questions about America's policy in eastern Europe with the Bush administration in its twilight months.

Today comes news on one of the thorniest issues facing NATO: America's controversial plans for missile defence bases in eastern Europe, including interceptor rockets planned for Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic. After meetings in Prague, Condoleeza Rice has just signed a deal with the government to set up the radar, despite fierce objections from much of the Czech public. It is not a certainty yet though: the accord must be approved by the parliament, where opposition parties are strongly against the plan and have called for a national referendum.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Poland and America reached "an agreement in principle" to put part of the defence system in Poland, in exchange for helping build up its own air defences. But the foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, sounded like a confident man indeed on Tuesday when he clarified that "we are not at the end of the road as regards negotiations; we are in the middle of the road."

Why might the minister sound so confident? The Bush administration is keen to settle the defence system issue with Russia before it leaves office. The Russians oppose the plan, which they say would both undermine their own nuclear deterrent and be a generally destabilising force in terms of global security.

All this appears to put the Poles in a favourable negotiating position (if they want any deal at all). As time runs out for Mr Bush, they have added leverage to wring concessions from the Americans. If the Polish government fails to reach an accord, well, the public isn't keen on the plan anyway.

Of course the American defence proposal hinges on what the current administration calls a threat from "rogue" states including Iran and North Korea (though the latter seems a bit less threatening in American eyes lately). A new occupant in the White House may see things rather differently.

(Photo credit: AFP)

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Lapulapu wrote:
Yonkers, New York
09 July 2008

George W., even in his twilight days as president, still has the gumption to throw his weight around.

This time around, he must believe, self-delusionally, that he can convince the Czech Republic and Poland to agree to those planned missile defense systems on their soil.

It is now apparent that the Polish and Czech peoples oppose such a U.S missile defense system on their soil. The primary reason is that those systems are unnecessarily provocative, and they know that Russia is vehemently and unalterably opposed to them.

The other reason is that their people do not really believe that those systems are designed to protect Europe from Iranian long-range missiles. In reality they know that those sysstems are meant to provide protection against Russian missiles!

Both the Polish and Czech governments are right to "freeze the ball" as it were, until time runs out on George W. and his administration.

Mariano Patalinjug
MarPatalinjug@aol.com
7/9/2008 9:19 AM EDT
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srbaker wrote:
The interceptors are not placed correctly to intercept Russian missiles. In addition, the site that houses the interceptor missiles will probably only hold about 10 or 20 missiles. How could this possibly do anything to protect against Russia's arsenal of thousands of missiles? Russia's fear is irrational and this system does nothing to defend against a Russian strike.
7/9/2008 11:45 AM EDT
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iamprof14 wrote:
The US throwing is weight around as usual. When will bush et al learn people don't want his agressive policies (which make no sense) but would prefer peace and quiet. This is, at least one reason why the US is almost universally loathed today.
maybe President O'Bama can change it for the better. I certainly hope so.
7/9/2008 11:52 AM EDT
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Maedros wrote:
Your opinion would hold more weight if you knew how to spell Obama...
7/10/2008 12:07 AM EDT
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gliterat wrote:
Sir, Let's start from the beginning. Did anyone considered possible trajectories of a "ballistic missile threat" from Iran, N. Korea and other axis du jour? Another American dream? Excercise in think and tank futile debate,I daresay.
7/10/2008 2:03 AM EDT
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iamprof14 wrote:
mensros:
you comment would be more interesting if you did not behave like an english teacher
7/10/2008 2:29 AM EDT
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Brycecon wrote:
iamprof14:
Am i missing something here? You say that having a shield is an agressive policy? Being able to protect yourself is agressive? Surely thats just common sense? Russia's complaints seem to be that America trying to protect itself, and us at the same time, is somehow unfair and going against the rules of the game. Why dont they spend less money on aggressive weapons and more on shields, then things would be fairer and safer.
7/10/2008 4:39 AM EDT
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Terimari wrote:
Czechs will not get fooled by the US bellicose rhetorics. Rice´s line "The world will be safer" sounds so ridiculous in this part of the world. The US admin forgets we have a very bad experience with WW2 and no one ever wants another way in this part of the region. Any military base will not be welcome here even if it should be built by Czechs themselves.
Interesting stuff here in this article - how even the Czech journalists will not get fooled by the Czech govt:
http://aktualne.centrum.cz/czechnews/clanek.phtml?id=610447
7/10/2008 7:02 AM EDT
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iamprof14 wrote:
Bryceon:
I would refer you to the Cuban missile chrisis.
When the milliles were 60 miles from Key West the US had a hissy fit...the Cubans were only trying to defend themselves..is this not the same in reverse..a shield are intercepter missiles, but could, presumably, become ground to ground missiles as well. The plain truth of this is we don't need shields or missiles...they serve only the right wing fools and are a complete waste of money.
7/10/2008 9:53 AM EDT
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jyanweiliu wrote:
What is amusing here is the disguise of calling a missile shield base not targeting Russian but to intercept Iranian missiles, no one believe this including American. Chinese joke they would never let Tibet fall into American’s hand because they will move in to build a meteorite interception base.
7/10/2008 4:01 PM EDT
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