Take Two Steps Back

UPDATE:

Although I personally believe that the European missile shield is dead, the Obama administration came out and denied claims of scrapping the program. There really is no coherent policy from this administration on European missile defense.

Maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic, but I feel like I have said goodbye to a lot of things since January 20th. I said goodbye to the F22 in this article, and arrivederci to Professor Dr. Thayer here. (Footnote - Dr. Thayer is now at Baylor teaching political science.) We are also seeing the loss of a once triumphant economy through government coercion and poor fiscal policy. More importantly we are seeing the loss of US Ballistic Missile Defense capabilities due to political mismanagement.

DSS professor, Ilan Berman predicted the demise of the European missile shield back in March.

In March, President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president in March suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe (Poland and the Czech Republic) if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.

Although at face value this seemed like a decent trade off, it's certainly was not the case once you start peeling back this onion. The United States has petitioned for some time to stage missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic as a means of defense against Iran, as well as the Soviet Union. It came with significant political will and even diplomatic costs. The Poles have been quite receptive, especially after the invasion of Georgia and our offerings of sophisticated air defense technology, but the Czech's haven't received the request as warmly. So, the Czech's have asked for a state referendum to determine the future of missile defense.

The problem with this letter being leaked is that we effectively tipped our hand. Since March, there has yet to be a referendum on the issue because both countries know there will be political consequences for pursuing a program this administration has no interest in.

Just this week Professor Berman, and Cliff May (President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies) wrote on Op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the issue of our lukewarm attempts at BMD and extending deterrence to our allies in the Middle East -

A half-hearted missile defense effort only encourages investments in missile technologies on the part of our adversaries, making them believe that with additional resources they will be capable of overwhelming American defenses.

U.S. missile-defense policy should be designed to elicit the opposite response. Our enemies and competitors should be forced to conclude that energy and funds spent developing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them will be wasted because Americans have the know-how and hardware to prevent them from reaching their intended targets.

Also keep in mind that we are unable to create an effected extended deterrent if we are unwilling to invest in missile defense technologies for these allies.

It looks like its a done deal - The Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported yesterday that the Obama administration is going to scrap the "third site" in Poland and the Czech Republic.

An Op-ed in today's Washington Times gives a clear picture at the logic behind the cancellation.

The Obama administration also has floated the idea of a combined U.S.-Russian missile defense system and of a Joint Data Exchange Center for sharing information on missile launches. It is unclear what the United States expects in return for trading away the defensive system in Eastern Europe, but giving up something tangible for a promise of good behavior from Moscow is a fool's bargain.

So we are effectively taking a step back from making nuclear weapons delivered by ballistic missiles impotent and obsolete. Shouldn't this be our goal?