President Obama made a sound strategic decision, scrapping former President George W. Bush’s technologically dubious plan to build a long-range missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, the Pentagon will deploy a less-ambitious — but more feasible — system of interceptors and sensors, first on ships and later on land.
Mr. Bush’s plan was flawed in three fundamental ways. The technology was nowhere near ready. The threat it was supposed to defend against — an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile — was also years away. And the plan (and Mr. Bush’s ham-fisted insistence on it) gave Moscow a far-too-convenient excuse to rail against the West’s encroachment and shirk its responsibility to help contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The new system addresses the first two problems. The technology exists and can be deployed much sooner than the Bush system. And it is intended to counter a more immediate danger: Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles that could threaten Europe or Israel.
Still, managing the diplomacy — particularly the disappointment of the Central Europeans — and the politics in this country will require a very deft hand.
Neither Poland nor the Czech Republic was ever worried about Iran or particularly committed to the need for missile defense. What they fear is Russia. And what they wanted was the security of a closer relationship with Washington — and the American military personnel — that came along with the interceptors and radar.
President Obama called the leaders of both countries before the announcement. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, he reaffirmed this country’s commitment to the common defense of all NATO members. It will take a lot more reassurance in the weeks and months ahead to calm their anxieties.
The complaints in Washington are already at least as fierce — and a lot more disingenuous. Missile defense has long been an article of faith and politics, more than reason, for many Republicans. John Boehner, the House minority leader, accused the president of “taking one of the most important defenses against Iran off the table.”
Not even the insistence of Defense Secretary Robert Gates — once a champion of the Bush plan — that the new system could be deployed faster and provide greater security against a more immediate threat could quiet their complaints. We suspect Mr. Obama and Mr. Gates will need to keep making that argument through next year’s Congressional elections and on to 2012.
Mr. Obama will meet in New York next week with President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia. He must make clear that this decision is not a payoff for Moscow’s bullying — and that an improved relationship will depend on Russia’s willingness to treat its neighbors and its people better.
We never believed Moscow’s claims that the Bush system posed a threat to its thousands of highly sophisticated missiles. The Russians repeated it so often that they may have begun to persuade themselves. The announcement should make it easier for the two sides to come to a quick agreement on extending the Start I nuclear agreement, set to expire in December. The two leaders have a lot more to discuss, including negotiating deeper cuts in their nuclear arsenals and agreeing on a strategy to roll back Iran’s nuclear program.
The president’s critics are right on one point: The Russians will be watching him closely for any signs of weakness. Mr. Obama must be prepared to press Mr. Medvedev hard on all of these issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/opinion/18fri1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=missile%20sense&st=cse
