European Missile Defense Plan Cancelled

The Other Guy

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9DDGIUcpNOK9eEn8fpm73W_rG7wD9APALGO2

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama abruptly canceled a long-planned missile shield for Eastern Europe on Thursday, replacing a Bush-era project that was bitterly opposed by Russia with a plan he contended would better defend against a growing threat of Iranian missiles.

I never really liked this system, I thought it was a waste of money and only caused issues with the Russians that weren't necessary, but what I am worrying about now are the countries who agreed to hold such missiles, namely Poland and the Czech Republic. Who knows what price they may pay for going against the Russians?

Thoughts?
 
Anything we do in the former Soviet Bloc/Warsaw Pact nations is going to cause "problems" with Russia. Putin is intent on reestablishing a Russian (read Soviet type) sphere of influence among the former Bloc nations. Only question now is how he does this. The amount of resistance to this on our part is likely going to be minimal.
 
What now

It will be interesting to see what happens now that the Russian government a.k.a Mr Putin has got what he wants. There will have to be a quid pro quo somewhere. Perhaps significantly increased Russian pressure on Iran.
 
Anything we do in the former Soviet Bloc/Warsaw Pact nations is going to cause "problems" with Russia. Putin is intent on reestablishing a Russian (read Soviet type) sphere of influence among the former Bloc nations. Only question now is how he does this. The amount of resistance to this on our part is likely going to be minimal.

Im not so sure, countries like Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Romania and many others have very strong anti-Russian feelings. The only way Putin could maintain control is by considerable force, and I can tell you for a fact that Ukrania, Georgia, Polancd and the Czechs wouldnt surrender their freedoms without a fight. Besides even in Russia its generally accepted that invading countries for occupation purposes is unstylish.

As for the Missile Shield -Goodriddence. A Bloody White Elephant that

A) Reliabilty was deeply suspect -and I think the DOD inflated the already unimpressive results to disguise what a lemon the thing was.
B) Was poised against a threat that didnt actually exsist, only might exist in theory. And Frankly the theory is pretty weak.
C) Was useless against any other type of Nuclear threat like N.Korea
D) Needlessly prevoked the Russians, and made the Europeans nervous.
E) Was Uber-Expensive, and served to throw public cash at friends of the previous Administration.
 
Im not so sure, countries like Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Romania and many others have very strong anti-Russian feelings. The only way Putin could maintain control is by considerable force, and I can tell you for a fact that Ukrania, Georgia, Polancd and the Czechs wouldnt surrender their freedoms without a fight. Besides even in Russia its generally accepted that invading countries for occupation purposes is unstylish.

As for the Missile Shield -Goodriddence. A Bloody White Elephant that

A) Reliabilty was deeply suspect -and I think the DOD inflated the already unimpressive results to disguise what a lemon the thing was.
B) Was poised against a threat that didnt actually exsist, only might exist in theory. And Frankly the theory is pretty weak.
C) Was useless against any other type of Nuclear threat like N.Korea
D) Needlessly prevoked the Russians, and made the Europeans nervous.
E) Was Uber-Expensive, and served to throw public cash at friends of the previous Administration.

Nicely outlined.
Now supply souces to support your points.
 
Im not so sure, countries like Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Romania and many others have very strong anti-Russian feelings. The only way Putin could maintain control is by considerable force, and I can tell you for a fact that Ukrania, Georgia, Polancd and the Czechs wouldnt surrender their freedoms without a fight. Besides even in Russia its generally accepted that invading countries for occupation purposes is unstylish.

.
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Well apparently, according to an AP report today the Poles and Czechs don't share you feelings on this issue. The Czech Republics largest daily paper ran a Headline "No Radar. The Russians Won" In Poland a headline was "Betrayal. The US sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back." Lithiuna a NATO member has expressed "regret". Yet another Czech paper as stated that "an ally we rely on has betrayed us,and exchanged us for its own, better realtions with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid."

With Russias incursions into Georgia, continued pressure on the Ukraine, to include cutting off gas to the Ukraine last winter, it's apparent, to me at least that Putin is attempting to re-expand the sphere of influence back to Soviet era style. Will this make him more apt to use other methods ?

If we are going to turn our backs on these allies it's gotta give the rest of our allies a warm fuzzy feeling. I just hope this isn't another stop on the 2009 apology tour, cause this one could bite us in terms of our allies.
 
Well apparently, according to an AP report today the Poles and Czechs don't share you feelings on this issue. The Czech Republics largest daily paper ran a Headline "No Radar. The Russians Won" In Poland a headline was "Betrayal. The US sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back." Lithiuna a NATO member has expressed "regret". Yet another Czech paper as stated that "an ally we rely on has betrayed us,and exchanged us for its own, better realtions with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid."

With Russias incursions into Georgia, continued pressure on the Ukraine, to include cutting off gas to the Ukraine last winter, it's apparent, to me at least that Putin is attempting to re-expand the sphere of influence back to Soviet era style. Will this make him more apt to use other methods ?

If we are going to turn our backs on these allies it's gotta give the rest of our allies a warm fuzzy feeling. I just hope this isn't another stop on the 2009 apology tour, cause this one could bite us in terms of our allies.

Agree with the fears these countries have. It is a replay of what happened to them at the end of WWII. How many years did the spend under that communist yoke. It is very fresh in their mines. They don't have to look it up in history books, they lived it.
 
Well, I can't blame these countries for being nervous. They're going to be tempted to take the route of letting the Russians do what they want, because the last time one of them tried to stand up to Russia we offered them no support, and the Russians took over half the country.
 
Exactly.
No, this is a huge mistake.
If Obama thinks that he can bring the US-Russia relations back to how it was just after the fall of the USSR he is badly mistaken. We are at odds with them and there is no question about it.
How to make up for this: move bases from Germany to Poland.
 
I've got nothing against being friendly with the Russians; actually I really think we've had a downright terrible approach to relations with them lately. Believe it or not, the first country to offer military aid to the US after 9/11 was The Russian Federation. How we went from that to where we are now, I can only blame on the Bush Administration's policy toward the country, which appeared to involve little aid or direct dialogue.

But, we should NOT sell our allies down the river to make up for it. Poland was one of very few mainland European countries to send forces to aid the US as part of the "Coalition of the Willing." I think this may have been more of an act of defiance against the Russians, Germans, and French as much as anything, but I think it was also a hope that the US would thank Poland for its help with weapons, training, etc. They held out for a long time on this missile deal to try and gain more for themselves in return for allowing the US to place the missiles in their country, and they only signed after the invasion of Georgia by Russian troops.

It's a messy situation; I know hindsight is 20/20, but this whole system has been far more trouble than it was worth.
 
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The problem is not about the missiles. It's about commitment. By cancelling the missile defense program they should have substituted it with any sort of move that would have compensated for it such as the redeployment of certain military assets to Poland.
 
A bit small of a sample though.
I have a feeling that there's probably a lot of fighting going on inside those two countries as regards to strategy towards Russia and the United States.
 
Well apparently, according to an AP report today the Poles and Czechs don't share you feelings on this issue. The Czech Republics largest daily paper ran a Headline "No Radar. The Russians Won" In Poland a headline was "Betrayal. The US sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back." Lithiuna a NATO member has expressed "regret". Yet another Czech paper as stated that "an ally we rely on has betrayed us,and exchanged us for its own, better realtions with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid."

With Russias incursions into Georgia, continued pressure on the Ukraine, to include cutting off gas to the Ukraine last winter, it's apparent, to me at least that Putin is attempting to re-expand the sphere of influence back to Soviet era style. Will this make him more apt to use other methods ?

If we are going to turn our backs on these allies it's gotta give the rest of our allies a warm fuzzy feeling. I just hope this isn't another stop on the 2009 apology tour, cause this one could bite us in terms of our allies.

Truthfully I don't understand the Poles and Czechs reaction. The Missile shield was antagonizing the Russians, making those countries next to it less safe not more. The Russians are one of the most paranoid people on the planet. Putting military assets near their borders riles them them up, and it doesn't scare them one bit. The missile shield was threatening global peace because the Russians would not tolerate it so close to them. Furthermore the threat to these countries from Russia isn't its ICBM capability, after all, why on earth would Russia want to Nuke Poland? There is absolutely no reason to do so, not when they have thousands of tanks and troops at their disposal, they could literally drive into Poland and the Missile Shield would have done absolutely nothing to prevent this.

Furthermore the missile shield is designed for limited ballistic missile launch from a rogue nation like Iran, perhaps a handful of launches. Under no circumstance could the system could coped with a full Missile release from a country like Russia which could have fired thousands of missiles. The Poles and Czechs are under the false assumption that this program would have protected them from a Russian attack, it wouldn't have.

Which is I think their reaction is just anti-Russian hyperbole which as I said is very strong in that part of the world.

Does Putin was to extend influence outside of Russia? Of course he does. but he will use economics to do so not the military. Many reasons why, first he would have massive resistance from any country west of his borders, and the Armies of Poland and the Czech Republic are stronger than those of Georgia. Secondly many of those Nations like Poland and the Czech Republic
are members of NATO, any attack on them and Article 5 goes into effect. (any attack on a member is an attack on all members) and that would be WWIII, and we know Russia doesn't want that.

Lastly remember this is Russia not the Soviet Union. They do not have anywhere near the military capability to launch on attack as they once did.
 
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Yup but I can fully understand the sort of feeling they'd have.
It's like how 50 years down the line, Korea still can't forgive Japan for the colonization legacy. And this is a country that was liberated in 1945.
I can only imagine the sort of hatred these countries have since they have been able to declare independence well within my own life time. They want Russia contained.
Russia may not be the USSR in terms of capability but it's really the same sort of creature it was during the Cold War.
 
Yup but I can fully understand the sort of feeling they'd have.
It's like how 50 years down the line, Korea still can't forgive Japan for the colonization legacy. And this is a country that was liberated in 1945.
I can only imagine the sort of hatred these countries have since they have been able to declare independence well within my own life time. They want Russia contained.
Russia may not be the USSR in terms of capability but it's really the same sort of creature it was during the Cold War.

I understand their fear and hatred from 1945, but this isn't 1945 and the Red Army doesn't have 35 Million Troops at its disposal. The Russia from back then isn't the same as today. The Red Army back then was belligerant and would start world conflicts in order to push a communist agenda. This Red Army is simply paranoid and will fight if they are provoked.

Nobody is asking the poles and Czechs to surrender or make nice with the Russians, but provoking Russia isn't a good idea either. 2 years ago Georgia tried this and the results were very bad for Georgia. This Missile shield was certainly a provocation.

Also remember, it what I outlined before that relations with Russia wasnt the only reason why it got scraped. The system was unreliable, it cost too much, and it targeted a non-threat.
 
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