US Features
US in diplomatic push to sell missile defence in Europe
By Mike McCarthy May 30, 2007, 5:13 GMT
Washington - Top US diplomats and military brass have been scrambling around Europe in recent few months to rally support for plans to deploy a missile defence system to Poland and the Czech Republic.
The announcement of the plans in January after months of quiet discussions with the Czech and Polish governments alarmed Western Europe, mainly over concerns that Russian hostility toward the plans will divide the continent.
Daniel Fried, US assistant secretary of state for Europe, has been piling up frequent-flier miles, leading the US effort to persuade Europeans that the long-range shield is not directed at Russia but instead against Iran's advancing ballistic missile capabilities. US President George W Bush will visit Prague on June 5 and Warsaw June 8 to pitch missile defence while in Europe to attend the G8 summit in Germany.
Based on his numerous trips across the Atlantic to meet with lawmakers and diplomats in various European capitals, Fried believes his trips have already begun to pay off, noting recently that Europe appears to have moved beyond the 'primitive political rhetoric that had been thrown around at first.'
'We have seen a notable shift in European attitudes,' Fried said.
The United States got a boost when NATO tentatively backed the plans after determining at an April conference that the missile defence system posed no threat to Russia and would not disrupt the balance of power in Europe.
Analysts also detect that European leaders and politicians have been moving closer to the US position but argue that the initial uproar in Europe could have been avoided if NATO had been involved from the beginning.
Dealing directly with the Poles and Czechs added to the commonly held belief that Bush's policies are unilateral, said Jackson Janes, director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
'Bush didn't bring it into the NATO forum,' Janes said. 'If he did that (sooner) he probably could have avoided this whole mess.'
The United States still faces considerable challenges trying to locate 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. Polls show solid opposition remains in the European public, even among Poles and Czechs, despite the general support of their governments for the missile shield.
About 2,000 Czechs held a protest May 26 against hosting the radar.
Bush's visit to the Czech Republic coincides with preparations by several Czech villages near the planned radar site to hold non- binding referenda on the plans. Many residents near the base fear that the powerful radar system would be a health hazard.
The Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency (MDA) says worries about health are unfounded. The radar that would go to the Czech Republic is being relocated from the Marshall Islands, where it has operated safely in a populated area, said Richard Lehner, an MDA spokesman.
The X-band radar is just a larger version of the same type used in airports and will not be turned on for more than a couple hours a day or for testing, he said.
'It's not like it goes around in a circle receiving and transmitting all the time,' Lehner said in an interview. 'We have been using X-band radars for a very long time.'
The missile defence plans are facing growing resistance at home.
Democrats in the House of Representatives on May 17 slashed a Pentagon request to begin preparing the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. The centre-left Democrats wanted to shift the money to more promising missile defence technologies but are open to replenishing the funds once a formal agreement has been reached with Poland and the Czech Republic.
The Pentagon has said that the cuts could disrupt the effort to have the system in place by 2013, about two years before US intelligence estimates that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States or Europe.
Fried, the State Department official, said that nobody wants to wake up one day and find that Iran has the ability to shoot a nuclear missile at Europe. When pressed during a session with reporters as to why the United States wants to force a missile defence shield on Europeans who don't want it, Fried said history shows that US and European security cannot be separated.
'We fear that if the United States was protected against, let us say, an Iranian nuclear arsenal, and Europe is not, the impact on us would be bad as well,' he said.
Fried said he was confident the Europeans will eventually come to the conclusion that missile defence is in their interests.
Analysts believe Fried's case has inadvertently been aided by the Russians, whose threatening language has hardened the positions of the Czech and Polish governments as well as conservative circles in Western Europe.
'That's a big reason why the Czechs and Poles want missile defence,' said Reginald Dale, a fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, 'because it bands them closer to the US, in case something happens in Moscow.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
'That's a big reason why the Czechs and Poles want missile defence,' said Reginald Dale, a fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, 'because it bands them closer to the US, in case something happens in Moscow.'
Thats rhetoric nonsense.
It is to the same amount likely that such a close binding will make targets out of them in the first place.
The system will bind Poland's and the Czech Republic's foreign diplomacy to the u.s foreign policy. Whatever this will be in the future.
And this goes more in one way than in both.
If the USA screws something up in their foreign policy within the next decades, Poland and the Czech Republic will be automatically right in the shit with them even if they dont have anything to do with that screw up at all.
It is just another neo-con attempt to enhigh political influence in europe which has suffered due to the european unions stand against the iraq war.
With Blair soon leaving office and a new prime minister who plans to bail out of iraq they see their political influence weakening on the long term sight.
Now they try to sort the 'soft targets' which currently have right-winger governments, out of the EU in an attempt to divide the european union.
The story they are trying to sell is : You are in danger just like we are. Which is pure nonsense. First they tried it with exaggerating the threat from Iran towards Europe.
Now as they pissed off Russia they try another rhetoric move of telling Poland about the big threat from Moscow.
Not to mention that the threat from Moscow was created by the fail of u.s foreign policy in the first place.
Its a rather primitive attempt. But as the nationalist governments in Poland and the Czech Republic arent....ehmm... lets say very complex...themselves.
It could work.
The funny thing is that european nationalists were the cause of two world wars in europe. 60 years ago the USA was blaming them as the root of a evil , now they are supporting them.
You can figure out were this ultimatively leads to.
The US help or the Russian-Chinese help. Europe you decide. If you chose the later then I hope you will get what you want... Higher Energy Costs, No Free media, One Child per family, and eventually am Islamic Caliphate
We can put them on ships. We can get space based radar. Why even put them in Europe? Why go through this play?
Hope - you really ought to get out more and understand the ways of the world - I assume you're an american which explains the ignorance
To Jim: You should get out more, Jim! Quit living in a cave and dragging your knuckles, and try looking past the end of your nose. It's quite obvious that you are somewhere in Europe, which explains your stupidity and lack of 'guts'! Tell you what, ... since you have such animosity for Americans, and feel such anger and frustration, .. go take a pill, and you'll feel better. On second thought, .. go take a lot of pills, and 'I'll feel better'! What a moron!
Ah, the Shark who made such a fool of himself on one of the other threads.
As usual, you descend into invective and insult but are unable to summon up any facts to support your point of view.
Before you start calling Europe backward or whatever, perhaps you should look at america's current performance - dollar at a 25 year low, economy only growing 0.6% last quarter (these figures may not have been released to you yet - propbably trying to spin them into something better), rapidly being overtaken by China, (India, Russia and Europe not far behind), and a population suffering paranoia from imagined threats. Guess who is more likely to finish up in a cave ?
Talking of caves - watch the news over the next couple of weeks for Bush to cave in on pollution controls and probably Iraq
The coldwar was boom years for the defence industries. Russia needs a bogeyman same as US. So here we go back to power politics and and nice little arms race. However this time the tables may have turned in Russia favour.
Since US screwed up in middle east, Russia has all the money needed and the confidence due to high energy prices. Russians also has learned that middle east isn't going to clam down anytime soon. Going by Iraq episode, the fear of the US by those arabs seems to be receeding fast. US plans to secure the oil fields in the Gulf and Saudi must be seriously compromised by Iraq. Whilst the instability in middle east grows with sectarian violence, and the uncertainity of further conflict with Iran remains, the oil and gas prices will keep rising. For each $ rise, Russians can build 10 ICBM's whilst the US will have to borrow that from China. Now workout who will win the next arms race decade or two from now ?
There is indeed a very large amount of money in Russia from oil/gas - and much of this is now going through London, where several Russian Billionaires are based.
The balance of really great wealth is shifting rapidly - of the 10 richest Billionaires in the World, the USA now has only 4
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BillMay 30th, 2007 - 07:56:05
The Russians have just tested a multi-head missile and a Cruise missile, both of which can evade any known missiile defence system. If the technology now exists, then other countries (Iran) might easily obtain/buy/be given it, so the proposed defence system is a total waste of money
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