Way back in June we reported on Russia saying that if the US built a missile shield in East Central Europe that they might be forced into a counter attack, training their weapons on those borders. Now the president is running into a bit of trouble going forward with this plan, Poland wants to wait for the results of the upcoming US elections and public opinion in both Poland and Czech Republic (where the shield would be located) is 70-80% opposed. An expert at the RAND corporation has commented that true to form, Bush has mishandled this whole thing from the beginning thinking he could slip it in under the radar.
“This [proposed radar base] project has not been, in my view, well handled from the beginning,” said F. Stephen Larrabee, a senior analyst at a U.S.-based nonprofit research organization RAND Corporation. “The basic problem is that the Bush administration didn’t realize how politically sensitive this issue was going to be, and didn’t realize the many ways Poland and the Czech Republic have become more ‘Europeanized’ … [where] public opinion has gotten more important,” he said. “They used to be authoritarian countries, and the Bush administration thought they could do this behind the scenes.”
Clearly there is no limit to what Bush thinks he can do behind the scenes, but why not at least TRY to be good at it?! Pulling things off behind the scenes is harder, for a number of reasons, so can someone, anyone, in that entire outfit get the man a F@#%$%$# book? If you give him the answers and he doesn’t take them, that’s one thing. But this level of either willful ignorance or gleeful stupidity is just beyond the pale.
We have to hand it to the new Polish government who is taking this opportunity to at least try to get themselves a revamped air defense capability out of this deal. The new Polish Prime Minister actually had the balls to say he was more committed to the security of Poles than it’s biggest ally. The Polish government is also taking a more wait and see attitude on this issue now that the elections in the US are looming. To wit:
At the weekend Radek Sikorski, the Foreign Minister, in a signal that Poland may wait until next year, said: “The worst scenario is a situation in which Poland would agree to the shield, will incur the political costs and then the base is not built because of a change of government in the US.”
It would seem this is going to be a little harder than just paying off a dictator. As we said above public opinion in Poland as well as the Czech Republic is 70-80% opposed with observers wondering loudly about the extraterritorial nature of this shield. Lets not forget, this shield isn’t meant to protect these countries, it’s meant to protect the US and its interests. (And, if we were to speculate, to give Russia the finger as well which isn’t all that bad from Bush’s point of view either) Would these two countries be finding out on international television that they’re now involved in a US conflict because the US used their extraterritorial authority to deploy the shield? We’re hard pressed to find a scenario where that wouldn’t get ugly quickly. Especially with a Republican finger on that particular big red button.
This weekend the big four defense contractors in the United States- Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and Northrop Grumman will be in the Czech Republic networking and giving Czech contractors a piece of the missile related action. This is clearly a triage move to get the Czech defense and business communities in on this if nothing else in the face of such widespread negative public opinion.
Russia’s interest in this is well known, with Putin commenting again over the weekend that the shield is unnecessary if not a complete provocation. Russia has already pulled out of the CFE treaty, and has not yet retreated on its threat to train its own weapons against the shield and other targets if it is put into place. Russian officials made a trip over the weekend to Poland to discuss this matter and will presumably be making more trips if this plan gets any sort of positive traction.
Don’t forget the sidebar here- part of the rationale behind even setting this up is the alleged threat from Iran. A threat that seems to grow more dubious by the day. Playing chicken in the straights of Hormuz notwithstanding.
Full audio of Russian, Polish, and Czech officials commenting on this issue is available from Free Speech Radio News here.
Further:
US Delegates To Woo Czechs At Missile Shield Mtg This Week
Poland’s Defence Minister on visit to USA
Senior Russian diplomat flies to Warsaw for missile shield talks
Czech firms seek U.S. missile defense contracts
