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Ruskies: We'll Target Poland Missile Defense Site
By Charlie
This is so 1982:
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Polish and Russian officials met Thursday for Senior Polish, Russian officials discuss US missile defense planshigh-level talks on a US plan to build a missile defense base in Poland, which Moscow says would pose a threat to its security.Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak and Poland's chief missile defense negotiator, Witold Waszczykowski, were discussing a US proposal to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland as part of a global missile defense shield - a plan Russia has opposed fiercely.
Kislyak was also slated to meet with Poland's top diplomat, Radek Sikorski, during a one-day visit to Warsaw.
Washington says the system, which would also include a radar base in the Czech Republic, is needed to protect the US and Europe from so-called rogue states like Iran.
Russia, however, has argued that an installation so close to its territory would threaten its security, and has warned it could target the base with its own missiles.
When viewed in the Cold War framework, this makes perfect sense. When viewed in the Islamist jihad to establish a new Caliphate framework, this makes no sense. When Iran gets nuclear weapons, Chechnya -a major security concern of Russia- could renew its jihad movement, this time under the Aegis of Iran's Shahab missiles. Russia obviously does not think that this is a big deal, probably because it seems out of the realm of possibility. While I like the idea of a global missile defense system, I am drawn to the argument that if European nations don't want protection for ballistic missiles, and aren't going to pay for it, why should they get it?
Far be it for us to impose protection on countries that do not want it, or spurn us for it. South Korea's past spasms against US force deployments comes to mind, as does Germany's post-2001 anti-Americanism. The Defense Department spends millions to establish forward bases abroad, and there are many nations that would love to have a huge US military presence (Romania, as an example) because of the obvious economic boost it provides.
It seems that Russia is reflexively opposing most moves by America now, and that is detrimental to both sides because of the common threat of Islamist extremism Russia and America now face.
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Comments
It is hard to see how nuclear weapons are relevant at all here. How are Iranian nukes going to stop Russia from pounding on the Chechens if the Russians want to? The Russians have nukes too.
More to the point, Russia and her proxies have played a major role in transferring nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Iran. This strongly suggests that the Russians, for whatever reason, just aren't scared of the prospect of Iranian nuclear missiles.
Why not build a missile defense site in Israel. Israel is the main target in the middle east, and a significant number of missiles headed for Europe could be blocked as well. If we add an additional site in England we could protect England as well. Except for our new Eastern European allies, all of our allies in the region should be covered at that point.
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I have some insight into this. The Czech Republic is more in favor of the missile defense sites in Europe than Poland is currently but they are coming around (they have a new government). More importantly, most of the NATO countries and France support missile defense. They used to be skeptical but the Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with State and higher level DoD officials, has been tirelessly educating Europe on the threat and how our technology works (more and more international partners show up to watch test flights). They believe both. It will be interesting to see if the Old Guard in Europe attempts to sway Russia.