Obama’s Critics on Missille Defense Shield Cancellation Are Wrong

BROOKS FOREIGN POLICY REVIEW ANALYSIS

September 27, 2009

“President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat. That’s why I’m committed to deploying strong missile defense systems which are adaptable to the threats of the 21st century. This approach is also consistent with NATO’s missile defense efforts and provides opportunities for enhanced international collaboration going forward and we are bound by the solemn commitment of NATO’s Article V that an attack on one is an attack on all.”                                                                                 

Critics charging that President Obama’s cancellation of the missile defense shield system in Poland and the Czech Republic marked capitulation to Russia and weakened Europe’s defense against Iranian and Russian missile attacks are dead wrong. Quite the opposite, the President’s new plan deploys a more potent, high tech, land, sea and space-based system to defend all of Europe and the Caucuses. Obama’s revised “Star Wars” plan is more mobile, less detectable and will be deployed faster than the original plan for ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and forward-based X-band missile radar in the Czech Republic. Arguably, the Obama-Gates universal interceptor missile system will put the United States on the cusp of uncontested global military superiority by making itself and its allies highly impenetrable to Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian missile attacks.

Appearing with President Obama at the September 17 announcement, Defense Secretary Gates stated that “We have now the opportunity to deploy new sensors and interceptors in northern and southern Europe that in the near term provide missile defense coverage against more immediate threats from Iran or others.” Given that Iran is nowhere close to fielding long-range missiles, Gates reference to “others” was obviously directed at Russia. Gates outlined the new plan that will deploy Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3 mobile missile interceptors that can be moved from one region to another. The U.S. has fifteen destroyers and three cruisers equipped with the Aegis combat system which is being developed into a worldwide, sea based, rapid deployable missile shield structure. These new capabilities are being coordinated with Norway, Spain, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Indeed, in February 2008, the USS Lake Erie, an Aegis class guided-missile cruiser, shot down an American satellite in space in its testing phase.  Further, Gates said Phase 2 of the universal interceptor missile system will include “upgraded land-based SM-3s” by 2015.

In addition to deploying the universal interceptor missile system, the Obama Administration and NATO are upgrading the integrated European Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) with current Patriot and Nike Hercules components.  MEADS will include forward-based X-band radar, 360 degree surveillance radar, missile launchers and next-generation Patriot interceptor missiles. MEADS will be interoperable with other defense systems, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the Aegis sea-based missile defense systems. Obama has requested and will receive $600 million in funding from Congress for MEADS in the next fiscal year. Doubters concerned about President Obama’s commitment to missile defense should also take comfort in the August announcement of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency that its modified Boeing 747-400F airplane was successfully deployed with a laser weapon that “found, tracked, engaged and simulated an intercept with a missile seconds after liftoff.’ This fall the first live attempt to bring down a ballistic missile will be tested. As for the “defenseless” Czech Republic and Poland, the Pentagon has already opened talks with both countries about hosting a land-based version of the SM-3 missile interceptors and other components of the system. American plans call for 96 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles in Poland, capable of selecting targeting and homing in on the warhead portion of an inbound ballistic missile. 

Obama’s detractors that claim Poland and the Czech Republic were betrayed in exchange for Russian support for sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program should think again. It’s true that Russian President Medvedev applauded President Obama’s decision to “cancel” the missile defense shield system. After all, he’d look foolish criticizing what Russia had so publicly demanded. On September 22, Medvedev also suggested Russia would consider supporter tougher sanctions against Iran. But behind the walls of the Kremlin there are growing concerns about Russia’s encirclement by the U.S./NATO buildup of a global missile interceptor system. Moscow has seen this movie before. President Reagan’s original Star Wars plan set off a run of defense spending in the USSR that contributed significantly to the economic hollowing out of the Soviet state. When Russia responded to the Poland-Czech Republic missile defense shield by threatening to place Iskander ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad on Poland’s border, it evoked a sense of an escalating Cold War buildup. If Russia ultimately supports damaging sanctions against Iran it won’t be because they feared ten fixed-site land based missile interceptors and a radar installation outside of Prague; Putin and company have a larger strategic problem to counterbalance.  

It must also be said that after all the rhetoric about the Polish and Czech people being abandoned to the Russians, surveys consistently demonstrate that a majority of Poles opposed the stationing of American missiles inside their borders. In the Czech Republic, over two-thirds of the public opposed the basing of the interceptor missile radar. For those who are still not clear about President Obama’s capacity for flexing American military might, he defended his vision of the Star Wars 2 universal missile interceptor system by saying, “President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat. And that’s why I’m committed to deploying strong missile defense systems which are adaptable to the threats of the 21st century. This approach is also consistent with NATO’s missile defense efforts and provides opportunities for enhanced international collaboration going forward and we are bound by the solemn commitment of NATO’s Article V that an attack on one is an attack on all.”  Commenting on the new missile defense system the conservative Wall Street Journal recently stated that “Never has Ronald Reagan’s dream of layered missile defenses – Star Wars, for short – been as close, at least technologically, to becoming realized.”

America’s military buildup of ground forces and the largest CIA station in Afghanistan and its aggressive push to place military installations across Central Asia are exerting enormous pressure on Russia, China and Iran. In the final analysis, President Obama will not be able to stop Iran’s drive to master the uranium enrichment cycle or develop a nuclear weapons program. What we witnessing now with the deployment of Obama’s Star Wars 2 missile defense system is a rapid buildup to contain the emerging Eastern Axis in Tehran, Beijing and Moscow.

Brooks Sunday Global Review Interview With Sabina Dewan: President Obama and the G-20 Summit

Sabina Dewan

BROOKS SUNDAY GLOBAL REVIEW: THE G-20 SUMMIT – April 5, 2009

On Sunday, April 5 Ms. Sabina Dewan, Associate Director of International Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress discussed the critical outcomes of the London G-20 Summit and President Obama’s role in the proceedings. Ms. Dewan is a co-author of the Center for American Progress’s recently releasedbriefing paper “The Case for Leadership: Strengthening the Group of 20 to Tackle Key Global Crises.”

Ms. Dewan works on economic issues ranging from the role of globalization to international trade and technology; the nexus between innovation, productivity and growth, to the role that development assistance, monetary policy and international financial institutions play in raising living standards around the globe. Prior to joining American Progress, Sabina was a research analyst at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland where she worked on various projects promoting the ILO’s decent work agenda within the context of globalization and international development. She then worked as an independent consultant based in Brussels, Belgium undertaking a variety of projects for institutions including the ILO Regional Office in Thailand and the Directorate-general on Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission.

Obama and the European Union’s Growing Financial Crisis

Since the 911 attacks in 2001, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the “war against terrorism” have defined the challenge of U.S. foreign policy and the burden of policing American empire. But the collapse of Wall Street banking houses has seized-up markets across Europe and propelled the continent into the maelstrom of capitalism’s global crisis. Thus, the Obama administration is now confronted with a far reaching foreign policy challenge. The severity of Europe’s financial dilemma was underscored by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s early March visit to Washington D.C. in which he called on President Obama to articulate a “Global New Deal” to staunch the international financial meltdown. Absent Sir Gordon’s Shakespearean theatrics that evoked memories of a New Deal-Marshall Plan, what’s at stake is the survival of Europe’s most significant achievement of the past 30 years – the establishment of the single market and currency, and the integration of Europe’s two halves after the demise of the Soviet Union.

For an Obama Administration beset by America’s deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, Europe’s faltering economies carry the risk of destabilization across the continent and the potential to aggravate America’s recovery. Obama is in no position to bemoan European leader’s reluctance to address their bank’s toxic assets and adoption of modest stimulus packages. Indeed, Obama has dodged the issue of shutting down failing U.S. banks and ferreting out billions in bad paper the banks continue to hold. Moreover, he has not pursuaded U.S. banks to resume commercial lending. Nevertheless, when the President attends the G-20 Summit in London on April 2 and addresses the European Union in Prague three days later, he will be expected to provide leadership and tangible proposals if he is to gain European acceptance of America’s global leadership role.

President Obama’s task may be more difficult now that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has united with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in rejecting Gordon Brown’s call for a “global stimulus package” to steer the world out of recession. The Obama administration has been pushing for Europe to do more on stimulus. At a G-20 planning session of finance ministers and banking governors held in Sussex, England, Merkel said it was too early to determine the effects of the first multi-billion dollar stimulus package; suggesting that consideration of a second stimulus package was pre-mature and irresponsible. Without specifying any committments, Merkel said EU members will pump more funds into the International Monetary Fund to rescue stuggling nations and highlighted the need for tougher regulation on banking hedge funds.

Among the traditional western members of the EU, the discourse concerning the best path to stem the financial crisis has been intense and sometimes quite divisive. Much of the debate has centered on the role of stimulus and spending, where opposing camps have emerged. With the largest economy in Europe Germany has and is expected to spend more than other countries. However, Chancellor Angela Merkel has consistently opposed Europe attempting to spend its way out of the crisis. Having already spent 4.2 percent of its GDP on economic stimulus, Merkel insist Germany is in the vanguard of fighting for economic recovery. Chaffing under the possibility that big spending will lead to an explosion of debt and rising inflation, Merkel has strung together a coalition of fiscally conservative smaller nations that includes Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Merkel’s French counterpart, President Sarkozy, has been the proponent of more protectionist policies and has enjoyed the support of Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal – all members of the euro zone and all posting extraordinarily high debts. As a supporter of bigger spending programs in Europe, Sarkozy has often been at odds with Merkel, but sided with the Chancellor in opposing Gordon Brown’s proposed global stimulus package.

Confronted with the uncertainties of the market and dubious about the potential success of America’s economic stimulus plan, increasingly nationalist inclinations are surfacing within the EU that are undermining the fabric of the EU’s integrated single economy. Financial panic and sharp divisions within the 27 member European Union are deepening. The economies of the fifteen Euro-currency zone nations like Greece and Ireland are hemorrhaging. When eight Eastern and Central European EU countries outside the currency zone united behind Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s call for establishing a 190 billion EU fund to restore solvency to their states, Prime Minister Angela Merkel quickly rejected the proposal. Merkel also dismissed another plan to expedite some of these countries’ ascension into the Euro-currency zone. Merkel said Germany would not support a blanket bailout and that aid for each country should be decided on a case-by-case basis. That sounds prudent, but the slow dribble of funds doled out to each country may lack the financial punch needed to deliver these countries from the crisis. In response, Prime Minister Gyurcsany told reporters “We should not allow that a new Iron Curtain should be set up and divide Europe.” Oh really. Surely this was music to Moscow’s ears.

Outside the EU the fate of Ukraine looms large. It stands on the brink of financial default. Although it is a non-EU member state, Ukraine has emerged as a strategic defense and energy battleground between Europe and Russia. Like the fall of any Eastern European nation Ukraine’s default could unleash a domino effect of collapsing other EU countries. Banks in Austria, Italy and Sweden are heavily invested in Eastern Europe, and would see the value of their assets plummet quickly if one of these states goes belly up. The eight Eastern states are Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania and the three Baltic states.

So what will happen when President Obama goes to Europe in two weeks? Not much. President Obama will certainly remind Europe that it has the largest collective economy in the world, and that to save it will require bold action. If Europe were to fall deeper into recession it would have severe implications for America’s economic recovery and could push the U.S. deeper into recession. He will assure Europe that America remains committed to free trade over protectionism. Leaving aside Gordon Brown’s utopian idea of a “Global New Deal”, Obama will pledge America’s support for more stringent international banking regulations regarding transparency, overleveraging and derivative instruments. And President Obama will pledge America’s support for coordinated “recovery assistance” plans with the IMF and the World Bank for European nations staring into the abyss of financial default. In short, President Obama will have little to offer.

At the end of the day, Europe’s leaders must reach consensus on a short term plan on how to financially process its troubled Eastern European states and Ukraine. Prime Minister Merkel’s faction must also be prepared to compromise on spending. Although she has won the argument on rejecting a second stimulus package, the price Europe must pay to extricate itself from the present crisis cannot be purchased on the cheap. If anything can and should unite Europe’s leaders, it is the specter of Russia hovering over Eastern Europe ready to pounce on any opportunity to bring its former Warsaw Pact allies back into Moscow’s orbit. For the moment EU enlargement is off the table. Europe has a crisis it must attend to or the EU as we know it, will be no more.