« August 2009 | Main | October 2009 »
September 30, 2009
Missile base
Barack Obama staked his campaign for the presidency on the promise of change. The realities of governance are much different than the promises of campaigns, of course, and Obama has disappointed some supporters with the slowness or incompleteness of his “change.” This disappointment has applied even in the realm of foreign policy, where the president has much greater leeway to implement change than he does in the domestic sphere. But in many cases, Obama has broken unequivocally from the policies of his predecessor. His recent decision to cancel plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe represents one of the clearest breaks from the policy of the Bush administration. Although Obama’s policy change in this case has much to recommend it, the move raises an entirely new set of risks and challenges.
Under President Bush, the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia, and the Pentagon accelerated development of ground-based, sea-based, and air-based missile defense systems. The ground-based system, consisting of missiles that can be launched to intercept incoming warheads, was deployed in Alaska in 2004 and soon afterward in California. These locations were suitable to contend with missiles launched toward the United States from North Korea. But to counter the potential threat of Iranian missiles, the Bush administration proposed deploying missile defense systems to Eastern Europe. Under the approved scheme, a radar would have been built in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles would have been based in Poland. In addition to defending the continental United States, this plan had two important side effects. It theoretically would have offered some degree of missile defense to NATO allies in Europe. And it would have greatly upset Russia.
Russia’s reaction to the proposed locations for the European missile defense system was impassioned and, to a degree, understandable. Ostensibly, it viewed the system as destabilizing and as a potential threat to its own security, despite assurances from the Bush administration to the contrary. In reality, the system envisioned by the Bush administration—with a total of 10 interceptor missiles, to be deployed by 2017—could not possibly have defended Europe (or the United States) from a determined Russian attack. Instead, Russia’s concerns focused on the geopolitical encroachment that the U.S. missile defense system represented. Although Poland and the Czech Republic have been NATO members for years, the positioning of such important and strategic U.S. military assets in what was once Russia’s sphere of influence represented a serious affront to the former superpower. Russia had opposed NATO expansion in the 1990s for similar reasons, but it lacked the leverage to halt it at the time. In recent years, under the centralizing leadership of Vladimir Putin and amid the global rise in energy prices, gas- and oil-rich Russia has gained greater influence. Its objections to the missile defense system could not be dismissed without consequence, although the Bush administration remained committed to the program to its final days.
Obama did not radically change Bush’s plans immediately upon taking office. Indeed, during his visit to Prague in April, he reaffirmed the fundamental purpose behind the European missile defense system: “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.” (for more, see The Water’s Edge, April 2009). His recent decision did not so much scrap the system as it aligned it to better meet his stated criteria of effectiveness. He will no longer move forward with the plan to deploy a ground-based system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, he will implement a staged deployment of missile defenses centered on the sea-based AEGIS system. This alternative presents several advantages over the ground-based system. The sea-based system is less expensive than its ground-based counterpart, and it has a more successful testing record, as well. It can be deployed in stages, first on Navy destroyers and cruisers already equipped with the system, with the initial system of defenses becoming operational in 2011—far sooner than the ground-based system’s operational date of 2017. Obama’s alternative is also more suited to the predicted nature of the Iranian threat, in which an attack with large numbers of short-range missiles is more realistic than an attack with smaller numbers of long-range missiles. Tehran’s recent testing of just such a missile further antagonized those who view it as a threat to regional and global stability.
Perhaps the most significant implication of Obama’s policy change is its effect on several bilateral relationships of real importance to the United States. Russia, quite understandably, was pleased with Obama’s decision. From a technical standpoint, sea-based interceptors are less of a threat to Russia’s faster, longer-ranged ballistic missiles than ground-based interceptors. In the later stages of Obama’s plan, missiles and radars developed from the sea-based AEGIS system will be modified and deployed, on land, in Europe. But it is likely that those facilities could be placed in the Balkans or in Turkey, where they would pose less of a geopolitical threat to Russia. Russian parliamentarians praised Obama’s plan as “a victory for common sense,” while conservatives in the United States claimed that it smacked of weakness in the face of Russian assertiveness.
A key rationale behind Obama’s plan is an updated assessment of the threat posed by Iran. Indeed, if the assessment is correct, Obama’s plan will do more to neutralize an Iranian threat than Bush’s plan, and it will do so sooner. But many had suspected (or hoped) that Obama would use missile defense as leverage to compel Russia to take a harder line with Iran. Russia has sold weapons and nuclear technology to that country, and as a member of the UN Security Council, its cooperation with U.S. efforts to stifle Iran’s nuclear ambitions is vital. When Obama announced his decision, there was no public signal that Russia would offer more explicit support for U.S. diplomatic initiatives in return. It is possible, however, that a quiet deal was made. Several days before Obama announced the change in missile defense plans, the State Department accepted an Iranian offer for multilateral talks on a wide range of issues. Nuclear matters were not among the issues listed in the Iranian offer, but the dialogue is a promising sign. Any connection between the dialogue, the change in missile defense plans, and Russian leverage is unknown. But shortly after Obama’s announcement, at the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev expressed a new-found openness to tougher sanctions on Iran. Given revelations of a secret Iranian nuclear facility that same week, Russia’s cooperation may become even more important in the coming months.
It would be logical for Poland and the Czech Republic to be unhappy with Obama’s decision. They had expended political capital in consenting to the placement of missile defense systems on their territory. But more importantly, they viewed the system as a way of further anchoring their security to the United States. Russia remains an intimidating force throughout Eastern Europe, which remains dependent on Russian energy supplies. By changing U.S. missile defense plans, Poland and the Czech Republic may feel somewhat abandoned in the face of an emboldened Russia. That the plan was announced on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland was inauspicious and unfortunate, to say the least.
The reaction from Polish and Czech leaders, however, did not betray significant disappointment. “I received President Obama’s words and declarations with great satisfaction,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, after speaking with Obama about his decision. Czech President Vaclav Klaus declared that he was, “100 percent convinced that this decision of the American government does not signal a cooling of relations between the United States and the Czech Republic.” An important component of Obama’s plan is the placement of Patriot surface-to-air missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. Although these will not be effective against long-range ballistic missiles, they can be effective against shorter ranged missiles. And unlike the interceptors of Bush’s ground-based anti-missile system, Patriot missiles can also be effective against attacking aircraft. In any event, the later stages of Obama’s plan call for the placement of more advanced missiles derived from the sea-based system on land, and Poland and the Czech Republic remain potential locations for those weapons.
Obama’s plan, then, clearly represents change. Aside from an effectiveness standpoint, his decision will have important effects on the United States’ bilateral relationships with Russia, Iran, and its Eastern European allies. But it may have a more important effect on an issue of even greater, more global concern. In the same speech in Prague in which Obama underscored his support for European missile defense, he called for a major effort toward nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. One of the first steps in that effort is the negotiation of a new arms control treaty with Russia. By addressing Russia’s concerns over European missile defense, Obama may have made such a treaty not only more realistic, but potentially more ambitious, as well. If that sparks a movement toward a global reduction of nuclear stockpiles, then Obama’s decision on missile defense may represent an even greater change than it first appeared.
Foreign Policy Association, 30 September 2009
Posted by Daniel Widome at 10:26 PM to Europe, | TrackBack (0)
