U.S. switches shield arms in Europe

In the previous administration, President George. W. Bush took a hard stance toward foreign policy. The United States did not seek cooperation from anyone but our staunch allies. Part of that strategy was to establish a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe with a radar system and interceptor missiles. The line of reasoning for this missile “shield” was a perceived threat from Iran and North Korea, whom we assumed would have the ability to attack our allies in Europe with long-range ballistics.

The Bush missile shield would have maintained stations in Poland and the Czech Republic, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. These sites were chosen as part of a mutual cooperation between the U.S. and its NATO allies, which was perceived as a threat by Russia. Essentially, if these facilities had been completed, they would have formed a strike-ring around Russia, offering significant strategic advantage in any missile exchange between NATO and Russia. It was this missile shield plan that froze most talks between the Bush administration and Russian President Vladamir Putin on mutual cooperation against the actual threat (Iran) and encouraged Russia to respond to Iranian diplomacy.

According to CNN.com, when defense Secretary Robert Gates first joined the Bush administration in 2006, he proposed the missile defense shield program be re-located away from the Polish and Czech sites. On Sept.17 President Obama announced that the missile defense program would be altered to Defense Sec. Gates specifications.

The reasons for this change are numerous. Firstly it extends an olive branch to Russia, whose cooperation we need to combat the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. Russian President, Dimitri Medvedev, stated in an interview with international political analyst Fareed Zakaria on Sept. 28th, that Russia does not want to see Iran develop nuclear weapons. This is a huge step in the Obama administration’s plan to “reset” American-Russian relations.

Secondly, the Bush missile-defense plan was behind schedule, technologically outdated and over-budget, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. In a statement made by the Vice-President of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, James Cartwright, the new missile defense system will employ satellite technology with mobile radar that won’t be constrained by permanent bases. Additionally, the Bush-era system was only designed to handle long-range missile attacks, not the short and medium-range missiles that Iran has shown in demonstrations.

While the president is making the best decision on foreign policy, it is coming at the expense of poor timing. Republicans who have not cooperated in the process of improving the domestic political situation, will likely see this U.S./Russian cooperation as a sign of weakness. With the future of the Afghanistan war tenuous as well as health care reform being berated by special interests and fiscal conservatives, this will give the president’s opposition a rallying point.

The decision to remove this shield was a long time coming; its design was flawed from the beginning, considering the strains between NATO and Russia. The Georgian-Russian war, which took place during last year’s Olympic games, was an example of those tensions when Georgia was disputing South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence. At that time, Georgia was appealing for NATO membership, likely for the territorial protection against Russia that it might have obtained from this future missile shield. For many months Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili provoked then- President Vladamir Putin, while a civil war was taking place at his borders. If Georgia had been a NATO member when it was invaded, we would have borne witness to what could have been World War III. We would have been dragged into a long and bloody struggle, similar to what occurred with the murder of Ferdinand II in World War I.

Luckily, there was no such alliance system in place Georgia suffered a defeat and lost territory to Russia (currently being organized into a buffer state with its own independence) and international diplomatic intervention stopped the fighting. It could have been a lot worse if the U.S. or NATO had involved itself.

In an era where we are trying to fight abstract ideas, like terrorism, we cannot afford to practice brinkmanship politics like we did in the Cold War. We do not benefit by shutting out certain nations, or behaving in contradictory ways. One nation cannot be viewed as greater than another when we are attempting to absolve the presence of an idea throughout the entire world. Otherwise pockets of terrorism, human rights abuses, poverty and disease will form in isolated nations (like Iraq, Somalia and North Korea) that will eventually grow. Every nation has its weaknesses but every nation can improve.

If we are ever to succeed in actually bringing freedom to the world, we must cooperate with each other. At his first major speech as NATO secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen has even suggested that Russia partner with the U.S. and NATO in their missile deterrence.

It might look like weakness to extend a hand, but we can’t serve alliances and serve the whole world at the same time. Alliances, by nature, rival each other. President Obama has never failed in attempting to partner with Republicans instead of rivaling them, despite how often the Republican Party shoots him down. This is because he realizes, that if we are ever to succeed in the future, it will take all of us, not just some of us.

Russia is not the U.S.S.R. It is a young democracy trying to find its position in the future. We must be there to partner with Russia, to offer advice and enlist its support in fighting real challenges like climate change, alternative energy production, arms reduction and nuclear non-proliferation. This is the first step. It is too bad we ended up stumbling into it, with one foot clubbing the other as it tries to step forward.