Analytics, Baltic States – CIS, Direct Speech, EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Security

In this respect, the first half of the new U.S. administration brought about a sort of foreign and security policy sobering. The new American administration entered into a direct communication with Moscow and the Arabic countries rendering the European “intermediation” largely unnecessary. Possible victims of this new course might be just Europe (especially Central Eastern Europe) and Israel. The anti-missile defense has not yet been fully relinquished by the U. S. (with Turkey becoming the new site for the ABMD in 2011) but is seems that it is up to Europe now to invest – politically and financially – into the ABMD, into minimizing the Iranian nuclear threat, into removing the threat of the new radicalization in Afghanistan and elsewhere and into diminishing its dependency on strategic materials supplied by Russia and the Middle East countries.

In spite of this, the Central European of the ABMD has not been abandoned by the USA, it has been, however, delayed and it will depend on Europe if it supplies a pretext for the U.S. to leave over the defense of Europe to Europeans only. The new attitude to ballistic anti-missile defense was very disturbing for Poland and especially for the Czech Republic, which pushed through the signing of the bilateral Czech-U.S. treaty on the radar base against a mainstream public opinion. Anyway, 2008/2009 represented the final accomplishment of several years lasting negotiations on the ABMD in Central Europe.

Official Czech Position towards the U.S. – Czech Bilateral Treaty

The Czech Republic signed the Treaty on Anti-missile radar base on 22 September 2008.1 The U.S. – Czech negotiations were less turbulent than the U.S. – Polish ones.2 The radar station should have served as a counterpart to the Poland-base

1. The Czech Republic Signed the Treaty on Anti-Missile Radar Base on 22 September 2008, 22. 9. 2008, http://internationallawobserver.eu/2008/09/22/us-and-the-czech-republic-sign-sofa-treaty-on-anti-missile-radar-base/.

2. Gorka-Winter, Beata, With or Without the Shield? On the Tough Negotiations Between Poland and the United States, Lubomir Luptak, Robert Ondrejcsak, Tomas Valasek (eds), Panorama, Mapping Security Discourse 2007-2008, Bratislava, CENAA 200835 anti-missile compound, but both European NATO countries were proceeding quite independently in their negotiations with the USA.

Unlike Poland, the Czech position was aggravated by the fact that the public opinion was much more opposed to the treaty and also to the domestic political reality: at that time, the government coalition led by the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) could not promise a majority of MP’s in the Lower Chamber of the Czech Parliament and the ODS-led coalition was brought down short after the Czech Republic took over the EU presidency in 2009. The ratification of the ABMD treaty in the Czech Parliament after new elections planned for the fall of 2009 was, therefore, not guaranteed at all. The problem was ‘solved’ by the U.S. president B. Obama by announcing that the USA abandoned the idea of a “twin” ABMD project (Poland and Czech Republic).3 The surprising decision made by the new U. S. president B. Obama has not removed the doubts about the threat posed by Iranian missiles. Just now (2012), vis a vis the problems the Iranian nuclear (and missile) projects one can see the reasons, why the ballistic anti-missile in Central Europe seemed to have its deep sense.

Why the anti-missile defense in Central Europe?

Summarized, the Czech supporters (both governmental and non-governmental) of the ABMD added numerous reasons/arguments, the following ones featuring as the most frequented ones in the expert literature, discussion and polemical encounters with opponents. Practically all of these arguments have remained valid by 2012.

• There do exist ballistic missile threats (confirmed at the NATO Summit in Bucharest in April 2008 and re-confirmed at the following NATO summits).

• Ballistic technologies have reached a high degree of development.

• Proliferation of know-how and passing it to non-state actors from countries like Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan in recent years.

• A real danger of multi-proliferation followed by countries fearing the “more successful ones having been left with impunity” (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan, etc.).

• ABMD is to be understood as a prevention initiative.

• In Central Europe, the missile threats from, e.g. the Far East, is not actual: Broader Middle East is a more pressing regional threat.

• The “Iranian threat” is not limited only to countries directly involved in ABMD (Czech Republic, Poland), i.e., it concerns also countries like Slovakia.

• Findings betray that Iran has got missiles from North Korea (reach/range of approximately 2.500 – 3.000 km) and these missiles can easily reach Europe.

• Iran has been newly confronted by a serious of UNSC resolutions, condemning its non-legal nuclear program – this country has not been trusted by the world community at all.

• The Czech military experts say that within several years Iran will have got missiles able to hit Central European countries.4

• Anti-Missile defense in the Czech Republic, 22. 9. 2009. In: http://www.vlada.cz/cz/media-centrum/aktualne/anti-missile-defence-in-the-czech-republic--61942/.

• Conference about ABMD in Bratislava, Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, 16. 6. 2009 (former chief of the General Staff of the Czech Republic Jiri Sedivy)36

• Measured against the achievements in building up “centrifuges”, by 2013 – 2015 at the latest, Iran will have WMD (nuclear weapons) at disposal.

• Face to face the openly aired threatening to democratic states (namely Israel), it would be irresponsible not to reflect the Iranian threat.

Objections as raised toward the project

Since the start of the ABMD debate, hundreds, if not thousands polemical articles and studies have been published against the project, especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where the opposition against the AMD has been much higher than in Poland.5 Both in the Czech Republic and Poland, but also in Slovakia as the neighboring country to CZ and PL, the opposition to the third pillar of AMD relied on several doubts or right ideological rejections:6

First, one has to take into consideration the very technical feasibility of the project: the technical-military tests undertaken hitherto have – according to opponents of the project – not proved a legitimacy of continuing the development of the system.

Second, the presentation (by US) of the threat posed by WMD suffered a heavy blow in the consequence of the argumentation preceding the Iraq invasion (2003): the WMD threat has not yet proven to be real (i. e., no WMD were found in Iraq). Above of this, falsifications of reality (CIA’s alleged falsified evidence) took place, which lowered the credibility of Iranian WMD treat.

Third, the US-PL-CZ procedure was controversial and some NATO countries (despite the NATO final documents from Bucharest and Strassbourg/Kehl in 2008 and 2009) saw it as another example of US unilateralism: the US simply pushed trough agreements with selected allies and then presented it in Bucharest (and later in Strassbourg/Kehl) as a given fact to be recognized by the rest of NATO members.

Fourth, the bilateral agreement (at least in the case of the Czech Republic) neglected the calls for a referendum on this issue.

Counter-arguments against these ABMD objections could be summarized in the following way: looking into the definition of NATO, the US could hardly negotiate with NATO on its own (US) military property, as NATO is not a supranational

The Mass media printed ABMD “products” have reached a colossal size of published articles, studies, blogs and other written polemics, whose quality varied substantially. Three main stereotypes figured out of the anti-ABMD polemics: The ABMD is not acceptable, because has been done separately from NATO (this stereotype disappeared overnight after the Bucharest NATO Summit); The ABMD has been directed mainly against Russia, not against Iran; the ABMD is technically not feasible. Most of these contributions were highly ideological and the author simply refers to countless internet sources in Slovak and Czech.

Miklus, Marian, “Missiles, Antimissiles and U.S. Antimissile System in Europe – Part 1 (in Slovak original as Rakety, antirakety a protiraketovy system USA v Europe – 1. cast), Vojenske obzory (“Military Horizons”), Vol 13, No 1/2007, in: http://www.mosr.sk/data/files/288.pdf?PHPSESSID=63594e4a.37

Organization but a standard inter-governmental security-military pact. NATO does not possess any military facilities and the US – allies (CZ, PL) procedure has been quite common in NATO: one negotiates bilateral agreements first and asks the other allies about their opinion afterwards.

The claim of technological inability of the ABMD has been regularly countered from military point of view claiming that the technological-military tests have proven to be very efficient in the last time.

“Russian factor”

The Russian resistance against the ABMD in Central Europe (CZ, PL) seems to correspond to the recent Russian efforts to play, once more, a more articulated great power policy in both the world, and the regional (Central Eastern Europe) arena. Among the views on the “Russian factor”, the following ones were prominent: the RF seems to regard the presence of US military staff at the territory of former Soviet satellites as a further step in loss of Russian (former Soviet) influence in Central Europe and as an obstacle for possible future attempt at restoring its foregone hegemony there; the declared feeling of threat (from the ABMD) for the RF can hardly relate to a real military threat: one has to see the Russian opposition to the ABMD in terms of “securitization”, i.e. of utilization of the issue for domestic political goals, this approach (securitization) has been widely recognized as a tool for mobilizing domestic support for official policy, once sensitive aspects of national security (identity, sovereignty, WMD) have been involved, admittedly, if the thesis about the Russia’s effort to relapse into hegemonic past is correct, then the Russia is quite legitimate in opposing the AMD, seeing in it provocation, threat and disturbing the balance/status quo following the US – Russia arrangement after the last enlargement rounds, one should admit realistically that the ABMD in Central Europe can be turned into a mechanism defending Europe against Russian military threats in the future: in this respect, the Russia´s objections to ABMD might be legitimate supposed that the RF has still not relinquished her traditional offensive hegemonic strategy towards Central Eastern Europe; one of the solutions might be to offer the Russia a cooperative security arrangement, i. e. to engage Russia (president Obama’s recent appearance in Moscow has gone in this direction); According to this security philosophy, Russia should become a part of such an arrangement. This is, admittedly, an ideal solution, which might be rejected not only by a lot of experts, but also by the very reality as unrealistic.

Conclusion

The ABMD in Central Europe has to a geopolitical tug of war between Russia and „The very reality“ can – according to the author – relate to a lot of variables like the Russian de facto support for the Iranian nuclear program, a repetition of Russian aggression against one or more of her former „Soviet republics“ which are outside NATO, Russian military reactions against ´centrifugal´ forces at the territory of Northern Caucasus or in „Eastern Russian territories“.

The USA. For Central (Eastern) Europeans, the deployment of U.S. bases at their territory may mean the final sequel to this Russia-dominated region in the past. At the same time, the Central (Eastern) Europeans can see their new transatlantic partnership crowned by their own palpable contribution to the defense of the whole Euro-Atlantic space against new security missile threats.

As could be expected, the ABMD issue was easily turned into an ideological struggle for the new orientation of the whole Central Eastern European region. The ABMD got into several deep problems: unstable political scene in the Czech Republic, new foreign-policy accents of the Obama administration, Russian revisionism and Russian efforts to be brought back to “old good” times, when Russia (Soviet Union) played a decisive role in the bi-polar world on equal terms with the USA. There are many variables in the ABMD game, but the most important to be solved is the further development of the Iranian nuclear and ballistic program. Facing the prevailing Iranian threat in 2012, the U.S. decision to grant (the increasingly Islamist) Turkey with the privilege to host the ABMD system does not seem to be a very happy solution.