Just because Russia is against something doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea. And placing missile defenses in Eastern Europe to defend ourselves against Iran, which Russia opposes, is a bad idea -- not because it offends Russia or could start a new arms race, but because it rewards Iran.
Putting a missile defense in Europe essentially communicates to Tehran that the U.S. expects Iran to be successful in matching America as a conventional military force. It also signals that U.S. leaders are powerless to do anything but wait for that fateful day to arrive.
Finally, the missile strategy arises from the kind of Cold War thinking that we should have left behind with, well, the Cold War. Not only does it complicate relations with our allies in Europe, it's also unlikely to be effective in the new kind of war the Bush administration says we are fighting.
At the beginning of a European tour during which he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-8 summit in Germany, President Bush said, "Russia is not the enemy."
That does not mean that Russia doesn't see the United States as its enemy. Putin knows that the United States is a popular villain. What is more, the main Cold War institution -- NATO -- is still encroaching Russia's borders, reminding Russia that it is surrounded and the outsider. No wonder Putin passes up no opportunity to fan the flames.
So why does the U.S. want to throw gasoline on the fire?
Putin says that Russia will take "retaliatory steps" if the U.S. builds a planned missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, redirecting Russia nuclear weapons against Europe. Vladimir, says the United States, this system is not meant to disarm Russia. It is directed at Iran.
Technically, of course, the puny system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic doesn't threaten anything in Russia. I'm not making the argument that this is just the beginning of a bigger system, or that the scientists won't eventually pull all of the pieces together to make it possible for a missile to hit a missile. Nor am I arguing that merely having missile defenses is bad because it violates the venerable rules of deterrence and mutual assured destruction.
I'm arguing instead that missile defenses are so old-think. First, Iran's ballistic missile force is hardly the most significant or pressing threat, especially when stacked up against terrorism, a Persian Gulf war, even potential WMD. Second, by the time a workable system is up and running in Europe, even if that is possible, technologies will have changed. Third, "missile defenses" connotes the very kind of passivity that the Bush administration usually decries. We are going to wait for Iran to develop an arsenal of threatening ballistic missiles to threaten Europe? The United States has a policy of preemption, supported by both parties, and it has the means of attack that makes it clear to Iran that if it wanted to lash out with conventional military force, it will be destroyed.
Which of course is why the first point is so important: Iran has no conceivable reason now or in the future to attack Europe -- and it has many other more productive ways to actually attack the United States and the West. The bottom line then is that the Bush administration, the Pentagon and the defense establishment are stuck on an old technology and an old paradigm.
Once, when we felt like we couldn't rely on diplomacy, when we felt that the nuclear threat was so great we just had to do everything we could to mitigate the threat, missile defenses may have made some sense. But now? Missile defenses exude failure and fear, defeat and a certain course to military confrontation. And since we are talking all of 10 interceptors in Poland, we are just telling the Iranians to build 11 missiles.
So not only have we signaled to the Iranians that we are afraid of them, but we have achieved the near impossible with our friends: 60 percent of Czechs are against the stationing of the missile defense radar in their country. A referendum over the weekend in a village in central Bohemia over the radar deployment ended up with a vote of 728-10 against. It remains to be seen whether the Polish government will be able to politically carry out its end of the deployments.
We have fanned the flames in Russia, complicated life for NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic, and rewarded Iran. An improvement in our defenses indeed.
By William M. Arkin | June 5, 2007
