>Dennis Claxton asks what are Obama's achievements. I think that >whatever
the motives for cancelling the East European Missile Shield, >that is an
unalloyed good, and a considerable one.
I'm not sure that there's any real cancellation to speak of. Obama rearranged the Bush plan, but even Gates specifically stated that, "we are continuing with missile defense efforts in Europe." These paragraphs from the NY Times kind of says it all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/world/europe/19shield.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
"Perhaps even more disturbing from the Russian perspective was the plan to install an advanced radar called X-band in the Czech Republic.
The radar has the potential to “see” 360 degrees and deep into the European part of Russia, where many of its missile silos are based. Russian officials protested against the intrusion and assumed that America wanted the radar to keep track of Russian missiles.
The cancellation of the radar in the Czech Republic could thus be considered the most satisfying aspect of the new plan from the Russian perspective.
Mr. Obama also ordered the development of a system that would deploy smaller SM-3 missile interceptors in 2011, at first on ships, but later on land in Europe. They are aimed more at short- and medium-range Iranian missiles
The SM-3s, at least as currently designed, are not capable of taking out Russia’s intercontinental missiles.
Down the line, though, the potential for more tensions with Russia exists. The Obama administration said it planned to deploy the SM-3s in as many as three land-based sites in Europe starting in 2015, and offered Poland and the Czech Republic the chance to host those missiles.
Since Poland was willing to host the larger interceptor missiles as part of the Bush plan, it presumably might accept the smaller ones. And even if Poland and the Czech Republic do not, other former Warsaw Pact countries, such as Romania or Bulgaria, might.
And the Obama plan calls for dozens and eventually possibly even hundreds of the smaller interceptors, not just the 10 larger ones included in Mr. Bush’s plan.
Moreover, advisers to Mr. Obama said they hoped to upgrade the SM-3 interceptors so that by 2020 they could be used to knock down intercontinental missiles as well as the shorter-range missiles now being countered. And officials said they would continue to develop the ground-based interceptors from the Bush plan on the chance that they might be needed later."
Reading this, there is, to some extent an expansion of the Bush policy. But, the most substantive change from the Bush policy is the removal of the radar system from the Czech Republic, but there's no reason to think that it's been taken off the table completely. Part of the plan involves relocating a lot of that shit to other places like Turkey and Israel. I wouldn't be surprised if the radar pops up in the future at some other cite.
James Leveque