Dialing Back the Bush Cold War

Remember about a year ago when George Bush and John McCain appeared to be waving red capes at Russia?  First over the aggressive moves taken by Russia towards Georgia (notwithstanding that Georgia itself provoked Russia by invading South Ossetia), then by Bush’s announcement of an agreement between the U.S. and Poland to house an American missile defense system.  The stated intent of the missiles located in Poland was to protect against possible missile strikes from Iran but Russia, unsurprisingly,  saw it as a direct threat to them.  In addition to the Poland missile agreement, the U.S. and Czech governments had already agreed to installation of a radar system there that would enhance the missile shield.  Many commenters saw this, basically lame duck, action as a means of making it difficult for Obama, if elected, to undo the proposed missile system.

The Czech Republic had already agreed to house a radar system as part of the missile shield. The Bush administration is cementing the U.S. missile defense program, making it less likely the next U.S. president will back off from it. The trouble for the next administration is how to do it in this new more complicated atmosphere with Russia. 

Well, Barack has found a way.  As Paul Simon put it, “you just make a new plan, Stan”.

Mr. Obama decided not to deploy a sophisticated radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland, as Mr. Bush had planned. Instead, the new system his administration is developing would deploy smaller SM-3 missiles, at first aboard ships and later on land somewhere in Europe, possibly even in Poland or the Czech Republic.

“President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat,” Mr. Obama told reporters at the White House. But he said new assessments of the nature of the Iranian threat required a different system that would use existing technology and different locations. “This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.”

The decision has the unanimous support of SecDef Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Not bad to have a rational decider in the White House.

Posted by marindenver on 09/17/09 at 05:25 PM • Permalink

The proposed missile shield was transparently more conceptual than practical, and more useful as a bargaining chit than a defensive barrier. Provocative military bugaboos like that are generally tabled with every intention of extorting concessions from, say, oh, Russia, for the price of some loud talk and a pants-peeing USA Today Info-Graphic as firmly grounded in reality as this one. Bush and Cheney may have been serious about it, but everyone else was just running down the clock until January 2009. 

In any event, the shield was already obsolete the day it was proposed, a better, cheaper, more agile system is in the works, the Poles and the Czechs aren’t all that chafed…and Russsia, we hope, has grudgingly agreed (temporarily, at least) to stop holding Europe’s natural gas supply hostage every time it has a billing beef with the Ukraine.

With Gates on board and a unanimous recommendation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Wingnut spitballers can go fish.

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