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As most of you will know, the USA is determined to set up a missile defence system in Eastern Europe, basing interceptor missiles in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic. Overtures have also been made to Ukraine, and plans for an extra array of radars in the Caucasus were typically assumed to revolve around Georgia. This handy BBC image should make the plans clear:
Now, these missiles are supposedly in place to defend Europe and the United States against ballistic missile attacks from 'rogue states' with very particular emphasis on Iran. The US has stated repeatedly (pretty much every single time the topic has come up for discussion in fact) that the system is not in any way, shape or form aimed at Russia. This is curious to say the least. Iran's current longest-ranged missile is the Shahab-III, with a range of about 2000km - roughly enough to hit Turkey. Even the most liberal estimate of three thousand kilometres takes it just barely over the Polish border.
Washington is almost ten thousand kilometres away.
Now, while it's true that the Iranian military represents something of an unknown quantity, does the US really have anything to fear from Iranian missiles? Given that they'd have to quintuple their missile range, probably not I'd say. Does Europe? Barely - and why would Iran target missiles at Europe in the first place? Seriously, what possible reason could there be? About the only target of interest to Iran at any significant distance is Israel - which already has its own (short-ranged) ballistic missile interceptors, and has had them since the 1980s. North Korea? Their missiles go in the opposite direction, which is why the US has established the ballistic missile defence site at Fort Greeley in Alaska, which can cover most of the trajectories. Poland certainly isn't on the map for such a situation.
But let's assume for a minute that there is a credible ballistic missile threat that this system is designed to defeat. The system comprises a whopping ten interceptor missiles and two radar stations. This is barely enough to defend against a single modern missile - it would certainly have trouble dealing with multiple warheads such as those said to be on Iran's latest missiles (and virtually all other ICBMs, most IRBMs and some SRBMs). And of course anyone who knows the first thing about nuclear doctrine knows missiles are never launched alone. On the other hand those long range radars would be great for keeping an eye on air activity over eastern Europe and missile experts agree that the interceptors are basically IRBMs on steroids with kinetic kill vehicles - which could be refitted to be nuclear warheads with minimal effort. I don't expect the US to do this but nevertheless the possibility exists. What's more, the system doesn't just stop at the interceptors; the US has already sent PAC-3 Patriot batteries to Poland in preparation for their arrival (these are also ABM-capable, but also serve a handy anti-aircraft role) and have discussed options about basing aircraft and other forces there for the defence of the missiles. This is far more than a couple of silos, and everyone knows it.
So what's the problem? Certainly, as America itself has repeatedly acknowledged - indeed said openly at most junctures in an effort to further calm Russia - the system is completely and utterly useless for defending against a Russian missile attack, which would utilise the state-of-the-art Topol-M and RS-24 MIRVed missiles which are claimed to defeat any current or projected BMD system with stealth characteristics, dummy warheads and jamming devices. From this point of view Russia has nothing to fear at all.
The issue revolves around geopolitics. From the outset, George W. Bush said he would pursue the shield at the expense of good US-Russian relations. For such a patently useless system, what's the point? Not only that but Russia made an offer to share usage of a radar site in Azerbaijan with the US instead, which would be rather more useful for the stated goal of keeping tabs on Iran. This offer was flatly refused - which was interesting given Russia's vast array of existing radars and its Moscow ABM sites which are, though currently badly run-down and in need of serious upgrading - just the ticket for a US cooperation project really - perfectly positioned to intercept any missile threat to Eastern Europe:
To be fair the US also made an offer to share data from the radar sites with Russia, which Russia rejected, saying it couldn't understand what the system was doing in Eastern Europe and had no particular desire to see it there. In fact Russia has been constantly angered by the European system, mostly because it sees the whole project as nothing more than an extraordinarily expensive (BMD is absolutely notorious for costing astronomical sums of cash for little appreciable result; nearly all long-range ABM systems to date, and many short range ones, have fallen under the axe of a budgetary shortfall, and with the effectively imminent global recession it'll be interesting to see how they justify this one to Congress) guise to insert US control into Eastern Europe, its traditional backyard. They have taken steps to counter the system's deployment, most recently by positioning a regiment of their most modern SRBMs, the Iskander system (with a 300km range, though upon the lifting of START or SALT treaties this is generally agreed to be easily extended), in the Kaliningrad region, about as close to Poland as you can get without leaving Russia. Much the same thing happened in Georgia - and we saw what happened there (and no, you can't discuss Georgia here). While this is in my opinion not a terribly bad thing - if these states want to forge ties with the US they're welcome to; though Russia might not agree it's really none of their business - what is a terribly bad thing is the way the US has gone about doing it. There has been huge public opposition to the basing of the system in the Czech Republic in particular, and on the whole the use of a vehicle such as this, guaranteed to upset Russia, to extend influence shows to me at least a shocking disregard for regional stability and to an extend the wishes of the countries involved. For a country which heaps vitriol on Russian foreign policy at most opportunities this is not exactly a shining example of setting a leading alternative (which Russia, of course, has been quick to point out in its usual blunt fashion wherever possible).
Barack Obama has also confirmed he will proceed with the construction of the system.
Further reading: Google is your best friend, but this article from the BBC (from which the above two graphics were taken) gives an excellent insight into the basics of the program, while this editorial from the Russian Information Agency Novosti outlines the Russian position very clearly.
Now, can anyone give me a good reason why the US needs a missile shield in Eastern Europe? I'd be very interested to see your thoughts on this. Very interested indeed.
Edited by CommanderJB, 10 November 2008 - 12:57.
