Russia: Just say no to strategic apartheid!
Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 12:10PM ARTICLE: "Pentagon Invites Kremlin to Link Missile Systems: A Package of Incentives; U.S. Offer Cooperation on a Defense Project Based in Europe," by Thom Shanker, New York Times, 21 April 2007, p. A1.
First off, strategic missile defense has never worked and shows no signs of working.
Second, this is just an attempt to keep that Cold War program chugging along, sucking up billions, by spreading the wealth.
Third, this is about pork barrel for East Central Europe to bind them to our strategic stance.
Fourth, how can I talk about integrating the Middle East to the world while simultaneously trying to wall it off? Why does rejecting bin Laden's offer of civilizational apartheid somehow translate into offering strategic apartheid in the meantime?
Fifth, Russia doesn't need any protection from Iranian missiles any more than Poland or the Czech Republic do.
This is nothing more than the Defense Department's biggest case of Waste, Fraud and Abuse masquerading as a diplomatic initiative. This has nothing to do with bringing peace to the Middle East or shrinking the Gap and everything to do with keeping defense contractors happy along with their Hill sponsors.
No one is going to strike anybody else with a missile in this day and age, because it's traceable and will lead to massive retaliation. Anyone who wants to blow off a nuke will smuggle it in, not loft it all obvious-like over the borders of several states.
This Reagan-era myth persists only because so much money is to be made on it.
Tell me, who's more likely to nuke Poland based on past history? Israel or Iran? How many millions of Persians were exterminated in Poland?
This is just cynical teet-sucking of the past, instead of serious dealings with the future. Shame on everybody for peddling this.
Reader Comments (7)
How long would it take, if the Congress refuses any more budget supplementals for Iraq, for the military to scrap useless platforms instead of cutting training, spare parts and operations?
The way the bureaucracy is set up I think this will take a very long time. Do we really need 5 carrier battle groups? Wouldn't 3 do it? How many submarines do we need? 10, 20, 50? How many F-22s, B-2s, etc...
Our big, expensive, sexy platforms have turned out all but useless. If push comes to Congressional shove, will the military be able to cut them or will they just let everything fall apart?
Second, that is a rather unkind description, but there is some value returned for the investment.
Third, you say that as if it were a bad thing. Rewarding nations who have stood by us and increasing the importance of pro American members of NATO and the EU, only a Democrat would think that is a bad thing.
Fourth, think of this less in terms of the Mid East and more in terms of Trans Atlantic (and trans Bearing Straight) relations.
Fifth, that may well be true, but then your best argument against military action against Iran is that it will place extreme strains on the connections that hold the Core together. Even if the entire premise of missile defense is a fantasy and the threat of Iranian missiles is completely overblown, there is some value to a cooperative program between the US, Russia and willing members of the EU to work together on a project like this.
The Economist web site had this bit of wisdom a week or so back:
RUSSIA'S sense of self-esteem has long been inseparable from its relationship with America. To have America as an enemy during the Cold War gave the Soviet Union a sense of urgency and of purpose: America took Russia seriously!
The end of the cold war deprived Russia briefly of a vital adversary. It is only logical now that, as Russia tries to reassert itself on the world stage, and restore its sense of greatness, it is returning to the sort of sparring with America that it found—perversely—so comforting before.
No television chat show in Russia passes without a bout of America-bashing. Russia does not mind being resented by America. What it does mind is being ignored.
Iran does have the ability to reach central Europe with conventionally armed missiles right now. Those missiles are no more significant militarily than the SCUD missiles that Iraq launched in 1991, but they can have the same kind of political impact that those ineffective missiles had until the US provided earlier generation Patriot missile batteries. The Iranians can pretend that their missiles are a real threat and we can pretend to shoot them down. From a political standpoint, we look a lot better in that deal.
Meanwhile, the Russians are invited in, taken seriously and have some of their congenital paranoia assuaged for a while, hopefully allowing time for more connections to be built between Russia and the rest of the Core both in Europe and in North America.