9/18/2009, “Obama cancels missile shield for Eastern Europe,” AP
“President Barack Obama abruptly canceled a long-planned missile shield for Eastern Europe 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.
The United States will no longer seek to erect a missile base and radar site in Poland and the Czech Republic, poised at Russia’s hemline. That change is bound to please the Russians, who had never accepted U.S. arguments, made by both the Bush and Obama administrations, that the shield was intended strictly as a defense against Iran and other “rogue states.”
Scrapping the planned shield, however, means upending agreements with the host countries that had cost those allies political support among their own people. Obama called Polish and Czech leaders ahead of his announcement, and a team of senior diplomats and others flew to Europe to lay out the new plan.
“Our new missile defense architecture in Europe will provide stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies,” Obama said in announcing the shift, which U.S. officials said was based mainly on a May U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran’s program to build a nuclear-capable long-range missile would take three years to five years longer than originally expected.
The replacement system would link smaller radar systems with a network of sensors and missiles that could be deployed at sea or on land. Some of the weaponry and sensors are ready now, and the rest would be developed over the next 10 years.
The Pentagon contemplates a system of perhaps 40 missiles by 2015, at two or three sites across Europe. That would augment a larger stockpile aboard ships. The replacement system would cost an estimated $2.5 billion, compared with $5 billion over the same timeframe under the old plan. The cost savings would be less, however, because the Pentagon is locked into work on some elements of the old system.
The change comes days before Obama is to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the United Nations and the Group of 20 economic summit. Medvedev reacted positively, calling it a “responsible move.”
“The U.S. president’s decision is a well-thought-out and systematic one,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament. “Now we can talk about restoration of the strategic partnership between Russia and the United States.”
At the same time, Russia’s top diplomat warned that Moscow remains opposed to new punitive sanctions on Iran to stop what the West contends is a drive toward nuclear weapons.
The spokesman of Iran’s parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, Kazem Jalali, called the decision positive, though in a backhanded way.
“It would be more positive if President Obama entirely give up such plans, which were based on the Bush administration’s Iran-phobic policies,” Jalali told The Associated Press.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iran’s changing capabilities drove the decision, not any concern about the Russians, but he acknowledged that the replacement system was likely to allay some of Russia’s concerns.
American reaction quickly split along partisan lines. Longtime Republican supporters of the missile defense idea called the switch naive and a sop to Russia. Democrats welcomed the move, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling it “brilliant.”
“The administration apparently has decided to empower Russia and Iran at the expense of the national security interests of the United States and our allies in Europe,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon of California, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.
The Democratic chairman of that committee, Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, told the AP the shift reflected a proper understanding of the current threat from Iran.
“It’s about short- and medium-range missiles,” Skelton said.
The Obama administration said the shift is a common sense answer to the evolution of both the threat and the U.S. understanding of it. Iran has not shown that it is close to being able to lob a long-range missile, perhaps with a nuclear warhead, at U.S. allies in Europe.
The Bush administration had calculated that Iran might be able to do that as soon as 2012, but the new assessment pushes the date back to 2015 to 2020, a U.S. government official familiar with the report told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the report remains classified.
Previous intelligence assessed that Iran would have an ICBM capable of menacing Europe and the United States sometime between 2012 and 2015, another U.S. government official said. Iran has improved its ability to launch shorter-range missiles, however, and despite the crude nature of some of those weapons the Pentagon now considers them a greater short-term threat.
The United States will join international talks with Iran next month, a major shift that makes good on Obama’s campaign pledge to engage the main U.S. adversary in the Middle East.
The new [Obama] government in Washington had never sounded enthusiastic about the Bush administration’s European missile defense arrangement, in part because Russia’s adamant opposition was getting in the way of repairing damaged ties with Moscow and partly because some in the new administration felt Russia had a point. Moscow said the system could undermine its own deterrent capability.
Almost as Obama spoke at the White House, the Russian ambassador was summoned there to get the news from national security adviser James Jones.
It is unclear whether any part of the future system would be in Poland or the Czech Republic. Gates said it might, and he also said he hopes Poland will still approve a broad military cooperation agreement with the United States.
In an interview, the Pentagon’s point-man on missile defense, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, stressed that development of the old ground-based interceptor system would not stop.
The United States still assumes Iran is driving toward a long-range, intercontinental ballistic missile, and the system once planned for Poland would provide additional defense against that eventual threat, Cartwright said.”
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Added: NY Times, March 2013: “Last March [2012], Mr. Obama was heard on a live microphone telling the outgoing Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedev in a private aside that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on missile defense after the November presidential election in November [2012].”
March 16, 2013, “U.S. Cancels Part of Missile Defense That Russia Opposed,” NY Times, David M. Herszenhorn and Michael R. Gordon, Moscow. Print edition headline: “US Cancels Last Phase of Missile Defense System that Russia Opposed”
“The United States has effectively canceled the final phase of a Europe-based missile defense system that was fiercely opposed by Russia and cited repeatedly by the Kremlin as a major obstacle to cooperation on nuclear arms reductions and other issues.
Russian officials here have so far declined to comment on the announcement, which was made in Washington on Friday by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel as part of a plan to deploy additional ballistic missile interceptors to counter North Korea. The cancellation of some European-based defenses will allow resources to be shifted to protect against North Korea.
Aides to President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia said there would be no reaction until early next week, when they
expect to be briefed by American officials.
But Russian news accounts quickly raised the possibility that the decision could portrend a breakthrough in what for years has been a largely intractable dispute between Russia and the United States. A headline by the Itar-Tass news agency declared, “U.S. abandons fourth phase of European missile defense system that causes the greatest objections from Russia.”
Russian leaders on several occasions used meetings with President Obama to press their complaints about the missile defense program. At one such meeting, in South Korea last March, Mr. Obama was heard on a live microphone telling the outgoing Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedev in a private aside that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on missile defense after the November presidential election in November.
Pentagon officials said that Russia’s longstanding objections played no role in the decision to reconfigure the missile interceptor program, which they said was based on the increased threat from North Korea and on technological difficulties and budget considerations related to the Europe-based program.
“The missile defense decisions Secretary Hagel announced were in no way about Russia,” George Little, a Pentagon spokesman, said Saturday.
Still, other Obama administration officials acknowledged potential benefits if the decision was well-received in Moscow, as well as the possibility of continued objections given that the United States is not backing away from its core plan for a land-based missile shield program in Central Europe.
“There’s still an absolutely firm commitment to European missile defense, which is not about Russia; it’s about Iran these days,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If there are side benefits that accrue with Russia, so be it. But that wasn’t a primary driver.”
Regardless, some experts said it could help relations by eliminating what the Russians had cited as one of their main objections — the interceptors in the final phase of the missile shield that might have the ability to target long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are part of Russian’s nuclear arsenal.
The Obama administration has sought cooperation from Russia on numerous issues, with varying degrees of success. Russia generally has supported the NATO-led military effort in Afghanistan and has helped to restrict Iran’s nuclear program by supporting economic sanctions. But the two countries have been deeply at odds over the war in Syria, and over human rights issues in Russia. Most recently, Mr. Obama has said he would like further reductions in the two countries’ nuclear arsenals, something Russia has said it would not consider without settling the dispute over missile defense.
But Russian news accounts quickly raised the possibility that the decision could portrend a breakthrough in what for years has been a largely intractable dispute between Russia and the United States. A headline by the Itar-Tass news agency declared, “U.S. abandons fourth phase of European missile defense system that causes the greatest objections from Russia.”
Russian leaders on several occasions used meetings with President Obama to press their complaints about the missile defense program. At one such meeting, in South Korea last March, Mr. Obama was heard on a live microphone telling the outgoing Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedev in a private aside that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on missile defense after the November presidential election in November.
Pentagon officials said that Russia’s longstanding objections played no role in the decision to reconfigure the missile interceptor program, which they said was based on the increased threat from North Korea and on technological difficulties and budget considerations related to the Europe-based program.
“The missile defense decisions Secretary Hagel announced were in no way about Russia,” George Little, a Pentagon spokesman, said Saturday.
Still, other Obama administration officials acknowledged potential benefits if the decision was well-received in Moscow, as well as the possibility of continued objections given that the United States is not backing away from its core plan for a land-based missile shield program in Central Europe.
“There’s still an absolutely firm commitment to European missile defense, which is not about Russia; it’s about Iran these days,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If there are side benefits that accrue with Russia, so be it. But that wasn’t a primary driver.”
Regardless, some experts said it could help relations by eliminating what the Russians had cited as one of their main objections — the interceptors in the final phase of the missile shield that might have the ability to target long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are part of Russian’s nuclear arsenal.
The Obama administration has sought cooperation from Russia on numerous issues, with varying degrees of success. Russia generally has supported the NATO-led military effort in Afghanistan and has helped to restrict Iran’s nuclear program by supporting economic sanctions. But the two countries have been deeply at odds over the war in Syria, and over human rights issues in Russia. Most recently, Mr. Obama has said he would like further reductions in the two countries’ nuclear arsenals, something Russia has said it would not consider without settling the dispute over missile defense.
American experts insisted that the Russians’ concern over the antimissile program was exaggerated and that the system would not have jeopardized their strategic missiles had the final phase been developed. That Russian concern has now been addressed.
“There is no threat to Russian missiles now,” said Steven Pifer, an arms control expert who has managed Russia policy from top positions at the State Department and the National Security Council. “If you listen to what the Russians have been saying for the last two years, this has been the biggest obstacle to things like cooperation with NATO.”
“Potentially this is very big,” said Mr. Pifer, now of the Brookings Institution. “And it’s going to be very interesting seeing how the Russians react once they digest it.”
In Washington, many officials have said they believe Russia’s real objections are not only about the particular capabilities of the missile shield but also about a more general political and strategic opposition to an expanding American military presence in Eastern Europe. Canceling only the final stage of the program does not address that concern, so it is possible that Russia’s position will remain unchanged.
Sean Kay, a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University and expert in international security issue and Russian relations, said that the so-called fourth stage of the Europe-based missile defense program “was largely conceptual” and might never have been completed.
Eliminating that portion of the program made sense, Mr. Kay said. “In effect, by sticking with a plan that was neither likely to work in the last stage but was creating significant and needless diplomatic hurdles at the same time, we gained nothing,” he said. At least some of the canceled interceptors were to have been based in Poland, which will still host less-advanced interceptors.
In the past, efforts to restructure the antimissile program provoked sharp criticism in Poland, but this time reaction from Warsaw has been more muted. Analysts have said Poland’s main goal in hosting the interceptors has been having an American military presence there as a deterrent to Russia.”
“A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: US Cancels Last Phase of Missile Defense System that Russia Opposed.”
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