Contrary to what people are saying, the decision by President Obama to get rid of the land based missile defense system in Eastern Europe in exchange for a more mobile missile defense system was very effective in cooling some tensions between Russia and the United States, but also speeding up the development of the defense system.
Under the older system put in place by President Bush, the United States government would place ten interceptor missiles in Poland and an advaced radar in the Czech Republic. This would allow for the United States to shoot down any nuclear missile that was shot by the Middle East (ie. Iran) towards Europe. Fundamentally, it was a sound plan that would have done a lot of good.
Destroy Hopper launches SM3 in test.
The downside to it was two sided. First, it would have taken a long time for the United States to develop this defense system. To get the interceptors and radar in Eastern Europe, after ratification by the two European countries, it would have taken nearly eight years to get the system up and running. If Iran is on path to developing a nuclear weapon like many government sources suggest, they’ll have it far sooner than in eight years.
Secondly, by putting this missile defense system in Europe, it did little to defend against the one place that Iran has always talked about destroying: Israel. The old defense plan suggested that Iran would try and develop an ICBM. According to new intelligence reports, Iran is instead trying to develop short range nuclear weapons. In other words…Weapons that can hit Israel.
Under President Obama’s new plan, sea-based SM3 Interceptor missiles would be put into place where the administration sees the most threat for European targets. These missiles, according to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have been proven time and time again in tests, but are also being developed more to make them even more effective. By 2015, there would be land based SM3 Interceptor missiles in place to shoot down any potential threats.
This new policy is the proper approach to missile defense simply because it gets interceptor missiles capable of shooting down potential nuclear threats by 2011. This is six years sooner than the old policy. Secondly, as Barnett explained, “We have VERY important friends much closer in than Eastern Europe.” In other words…Israel.
The United States is obviously worried about a nuclear Iran. Rather than putting missiles in Eastern Europe that does little to defend our closest ally to the problem, we have created a policy that would get defense in place much sooner and effectively get rid of any threat by Iran.
A much smaller benefit to this is the added relations with Russia. Russia and the United States were not sharing the same opinion on this missile defense system being placed in Eastern Europe. Russia saw it as a threat to their “sphere of influence.” I can see where that comes from. What’s beneficial about this updated missile defense system is it now gives America a playing card. When President Obama meets with President Medvedev, he could use potentially use this as a political tool in getting Russia to aid in getting Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons.
A missile defense, if properly installed and tested, could make ballistic missiles with nuclear capability nearly obsolete. The issue is that it needs to be an effective tool. President Obama and his team of national-security experts made the right decision in moving the missile defense system from Eastern Europe to a more logical location closer to Iran. The political advantages gained from this are only an added bonus when discussing relations with Russia.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. Also, you can always follow us on twitter! As always, we strive to be as unbiased as possible. If you have a piece of commentary you’d like to see on WeThePeoplePolitics.com, please e-mail us.
About Jacob Cohen Donnelly
I have some an objection to your article. Whatever the supposed immediate justification for placing such weapon systems in Central Europe , it must be understood that the technology has functional capacity beyond that. Other nations in the Middle East or South Asia could just as easily develop missiles that threaten the security of the Western world, but are not yet close enough to appear on our radar. It therefore establishes a first response protocol should such issues arise later. Moreover, the placement of such weapons in Central Europe sends a strong message to Russia about overstepping its bounds. The importance of that cannot be overstated given their recent hostile actions. They are not now, nor can they ever be, an American ally.
I don’t see how a Central Europe missile defense system would defend against missiles from South Asia. More so, with the new missile defense plan that will be put into place faster than the old Bush one, it defends against any missile that the Middle East may wield (even though I don’t really have a worry about that).
I disagree with you about the missile shield sending a strong message to Russia. I think what it does is piss Russia off and quite frankly, there are other routes. Just recently, Russia has set up a gas plan with Germany. The economy is pushing forward. Russia is a growing economy and I don’t see them stepping in and saying, “Yup, time to take control again.”
As for your last sentence about “…not now, nor can they ever be, an American ally” is a very typical Cold War response to this. Russia is not the Soviet Union and I see the United States and Russia working together. Globalization will provide that, you’ll see.