As Poles Balk, U.S. Eyes Lithuania As Site For Missile Shield

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
June 19, 2008 By Judy Dempsey
BERLIN — Poland is balking at further negotiations with the United States over plans to deploy an antiballistic missile shield, prompting Washington to seek out Lithuania, formerly part of the Soviet Union, as a possible alternative location, officials said Wednesday.
The American approach to Lithuania is likely to stir fresh tensions with Russia, which has already threatened to act if the United States deploys the shield’s missile interceptors in Poland and its radar in the Czech Republic. Both are NATO countries that once belonged to the defunct Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
But the idea of putting the shield on former Soviet territory surprised some European security experts.
“The last thing we need is another conflict with Russia,” said Gereon Schuch, program director in the Robert Bosch Foundation for Central and Eastern Europe at the German Council for Foreign Affairs.
Russia is already angry over NATO’s attempts to expand to Ukraine, another former Soviet republic, especially since NATO’s top representatives visited Ukraine this week to see what changes it was making to start membership talks.
Russia has made clear that it will try to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and may retaliate. It is, for example, preparing to introduce visa restrictions for Ukrainians entering Russia.
If the United States negotiated to deploy the shield in Lithuania, Russia would almost certainly adopt an even tougher stance toward that country, military experts said. The Russian defense and security establishment still finds it extremely difficult to accept that the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, broke away from the Soviet Union and became independent in 1991 and subsequently joined the European Union and NATO.
“There is no doubt that Russia would exploit this to the full if parts of the U.S. missile shield were based here,” said Raimundas Lopata, a professor of political science at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University.
The State Department said its security experts had already spoken to the Lithuanians.
“We have had general conversations with the government of Lithuania about missile defense issues,” said Tom Casey, the State Department’s deputy spokesman. “But, certainly, we expect and hope that we will be able to conclude an agreement with Poland in the near future. And we do expect it will work out, so I don’t think there’s going to be a need for any alternatives.”
But Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that “there are other options available to us.”
“There are several European countries that could host the interceptors, and Lithuania is one of them,” he said.
Juozas Olekas, the Lithuanian defense minister, said Wednesday that his government was waiting to see what terms the United States might offer.
The overtures to Lithuania reflect exasperation in Poland and the United States over negotiations to deploy the shield in Poland.
In March, Poland’s center-right government, led by Donald Tusk, presented the United States with a short but costly list of conditions for placing up to 10 inceptors on its territory. It demanded that the United States provide a mobile air defense system that NATO diplomats have said could cost billions of dollars.
Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, said last month that if his country agreed to accept the interceptors and a United States presence, it needed to modernize its air defenses to protect itself from threats. The Polish Defense Ministry has said those threats could come from Russia.
The United States has rejected the Polish requests, apparently leaving the government in Warsaw with the impression that no deal can be struck before the Bush administration leaves office in January. Ministers have said it might be better to wait until a new administration is in place.
 
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