RSS Feed MenuLast August, Poland and the United States struck a deal to base a battery of U.S. antimissile systems, consisting of about 10 missiles, on Polish soil. To make the deal, Poland had to fend off opposition from both Russia and the European Union.
Now, after Poland has toughed its way through these risks, the Obama administration is hinting that it may renege on the deal.
At the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 7, Vice-President Biden opened this escape hatch from the Polish agreement:
“We will continue to develop missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven to work and cost-effective.”
The escape hatch is the conviction of many inside the Obama Administration that missile defense can be tarred as unproven or prohibitively expensive.
Yet both objections to the Polish arrangement are empty.
The threat to be deterred by the Polish battery is an accidental, difficult to attribute, or other small nuclear launch toward Europe from, say, Iran. The Polish deal uses off-the-shelf technology, and is the best defense possible to the particular threat. Even if the systems do not actually successfully intercept such launches if needed, they may have a significant deterrent effect, since Iran might not risk launching its one or two operational missiles in the way of such interceptors.
Biden’s presumed doubts about missile defenses predate all those occasions, however, and seem to have been formed and ossified around 1985, when there was much more talk (and doubt, too) about a comprehensive missile “shield.” They have little to do with the technology as it stands today and its proposed very limited use against small strikes. As to cost-effectiveness, UAE seems to believe that its $4 billion on new U.S. missile defenses is well-spent. The Administration has done nothing to discourage that on the grounds of efficacy or cost-effectiveness to that ally.
Rule Number One of international politics is to know who your friends are. And Poland has been a great one, participating jointly with the United States in virtually every enterprise they have been asked to do, including NATO and Iraq. To now scuttle the relatively modest missile defense and military modernization proposal just because Russia and/or the EU might not like it will make Poland look foolish, and for worse than nothing, since the Administration would have needlessly cast doubt on existing technologies intended to deter nuclear strikes from a proliferating region.
The late presidential scholar Richard Neustadt noted that new presidents typically encounter a critical foreign policy decision early in their term that they flub because of lack of preparation or its complexity (taking the name from the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy’s particular one, he called them “piglets”). If Biden spoke wrongly for the Administration, Obama himself should say so, and right away. If his words were Administration policy, it is in for one diplomatic and strategic piglet on top of another.
sinz54 // Feb 13, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Why would Iran even bother to attack Europe? Europe has already surrendered to Islamism and is on its knees anyway. Soon, Europe will be the JUNIOR partner of the fat oil shieks of the Middle East.
buzzricksons // Feb 13, 2009 at 3:54 pm
It’s not about the attack, it’s about the size of its nuclear umbrella. In other words, the size of the threat. Obama’s going to knife the Poles and Czechs by undoing the progress made in developing these strategic friendships by previous administrations, who’ve staged this for him to walk it across the finish line. What a loser, if that’s the case. What a great way to build the “trust of our allies”.
sinz54 // Feb 13, 2009 at 5:42 pm
What would happen, if Iran did fire a nuclear missile against Poland or Czechoslovakia, but the missile defenses failed to intercept it, and it detonated on European soil? That fiasco would wreck what little remains of America’s credibility on military defense. During the Cold War, we built weapons and defense systems also of unproven reliability. But since they were intended for deterrence–to bluff the Soviets into thinking they might work–they didn’t have to be proven. But Ahmedinijad is just nuts enough to actually push the button someday–the bluffing of deterrence may not work with him. So we had better make sure that if we try to make an intercept, we succeed.
Egli Ha // Feb 13, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Yeah, “missile defense”! I remember when Dr. Edward Teller told President Reagan we could blast commie missiles out of the sky with x-ray lasers mounted on satellites. ZZZap!!! At the time, x-ray lasers did exist, but they required a nuclear explosion to pump them. Now you don’t need a nuke but they’re no where near bright enough to do any damage to a missile.
Regarding the base in Poland, David Frum never replied when I asked him, what should we do when unmarked planes fly in from the east and bomb it to rubble?
erasmuse // Feb 14, 2009 at 6:27 am
The first goof? Don’t forget Obama on Iran and Geithner on China.
sinz54 // Feb 14, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Egli Ha asks: “what should we do when unmarked planes fly in from the east and bomb it to rubble?” From what I’ve seen of President Obama thus far, he’ll do nothing substantive about it.
dragonlady // Feb 14, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Is Obama leaving foreign policy to his staff and other principals? Yes, the economy is the priority but he’s MIA on foreign policy except kissing up to the Iranians. So is it Biden, Clinton, Jones, who?