The “ABM Game” is gaining momentum in Europe. Poland and Czech Republic have been apparently chosen as “hostages” of the U.S. global MD. “A ground-surveillance radar and tracking station of the U.S. NMD system will be installed in the Czech Republic, while Poland will host a U.S. missile base,” Czech Foreign Minister Alexander Vondra told Hospodarske Novine, a Prague daily.
The construction is to start this year. Officially the U.S. military base in Poland will have ten launching silos for interceptor missiles; however, if need be, they can be easily modified to launch ballistic missiles which could reach even remote targets in the European part of Russia. In both cases (interception or strike) the missiles will be directed by the American radar based in the Czech Republic. The U.S. is planning to allocate $600 to $700 million for the realization of the plan.
The “ABM Game” in Europe is accompanied by broad media campaign aimed at concealing U.S.’ true strategic interests in Europe. MDA Director Henry Obering tried to justify the global U.S. BMD components placed in Europe by saying it would not just consolidate the U.S. NMD system, but protect their European allies as well. Without U.S. military bases in Europe, he stressed, Washington would be unable to guarantee their security, and the safety of U.S. citizens living in Europe and U.S. troops deployed in the region. Other such “rationales” for building the BMD shield in Europe are being occasionally fed to the media; the “cold war” realities were nothing like what’s going on today.
The part of U.S.’ global BMD project implemented in Europe does need wise media support, because the public in Poland and Czech Republic still has natural concerns about the possible political, and even more importantly, economic and environmental aftermath of the decisions made by their governments. Czechs and Poles-on-the-street know only too well that nations having U.S. missiles and related infrastructure will be hit first if a war breaks out. Their military and political leaders who take no heed of their people’s attitudes and allocate land for U.S. missile bases had better realize that a ballistic-missile attack on a “shielded” territory would be far more powerful than any ABM system. As for the much ado about building a global ABM, it is nothing but a political gimmick aimed at covering the true ambitions of big corporations which develop and manufacture weapons – companies in the U.S. defense industry involved in costly projects to create new ground, air, marine and space weapon systems.
Now what do Poland and Czech Republic win in exchange for their pains? Probably a missile defense agreement with the U.S. – a feeble security guarantee in addition to the major headache and huge expenditures for accommodating U.S. troops and military hardware, serious environmental concerns and other problems. Of course, East-European specialists won’t be allowed anywhere near the development of state-of-the-art missile-defense technologies. It becomes clear from the past experience – the earlier U.S., West-European and Japanese joint ABM projects.
The two sides will probably agree on the joint financing of the military infrastructure development. However, a country hosting a foreign military base usually pays more, and the East European nations will have to stretch their budgets to provide for additional expenditures. Environmental issues are no less important. It looks like their governments fail to thoroughly estimate the financial and environmental consequences of hosting a U.S. missile base, which are quite likely to shape into huge amounts; as for the environmental dangers posed by hosting the U.S. tracking radar system, they are being deliberately concealed from the public.
Most importantly, Russia today cannot allow the strategic stability balance in the region to be threatened. If the U.S.’ plans to base part of its missile defense system in Poland and Czech Republic come true, part of Russian ballistic missiles might be subject to interception at boost stage and would consequently deliver smaller nuclear potentials to their targets. To restore the shattered strategic balance, Russia will have to respond by augmenting its nuclear missile potential and develop new generations of ballistic missiles immune to the ABM system now created. This means a new lap in the arms race. Who needs the arms race? Only those who benefit from it – the United States.
One should not pin too much hope on the recent Riga treaty on the single European missile-defense system to be built by NATO. The NATO countries’ taxpayers will have to provide around $95 million for the project which will probably thwart the Russia-EU ABM talks. The projected missile defense system in the European theater of operation will be again based on U.S. technologies. However, a comparative analysis of its real qualities versus declared characteristics shows that its combat capabilities are not at all as good as its U.S. authors claim.
One should also bear in mind that the European missile defense system will be directed from the United States, and in a way to protect the U.S. territory best. This means that in most cases the choice of ballistic targets to intercept will hardly meet the needs of the country hosting the system or other “protected” European nations.
It is also obvious that this missile defense system will require additional U.S. military bases in Europe for an almost indefinite term. The countries hosting those bases will consequently lose their sovereignty (partially or fully) and independence from the United States in making strategically important political decisions. These countries will from then on be bound to take their cue from the U.S., following its policy - often inconsistent, ill-conceived and extremely aggressive – even defeating their government’s own purposes. Still, they will hardly be guaranteed against missile strikes.
In addition, the location of the missile-defense system in Europe will inevitably add to mistrust in the Russia-NATO relations. This will definitely please the Global missile-defense system advocates who have planned basing part of it in Europe, because the European MD, if built the way they have planned, will be eventually included in the U.S. global ABM system. It follows from the above that the “ABM game” is gaining momentum in Europe, fraught with grave consequences.
