Cox & Stokes: US Foreign Policy 
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US Missile Defence: Towards a New European Outpost?
As George W. Bush nears the end of his tenure in the Oval Office the issue of missile defence can be seen to have been a persistent concern of the Bush era – even if the ‘War on Terror’ has dominated debates over Bush’s foreign policy.
The concept of missile defence is now primarily associated with a current American initiative – known as Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) – which aims to protect the United States from missile attack. It attempts to do so by using radars to identify and track an incoming missile and then launching interceptor missiles to destroy the hostile projectile before it reaches its intended target. One of the few items on Bush’s foreign policy agenda prior to 9/11, investment in missile defence has remained consistently high (around $8-10 billion per annum since 2001) and the issue has recently re-emerged as the Bush administration attempts to secure a European outpost for BMD as part of its legacy.
Efforts to secure this legacy have not gone entirely smoothly however, and proposals for European-based elements of BMD have been opposed by Russia in particular. US plans to station components of its BMD system in Poland and Czech Republic –under the aegis of NATO – are viewed within Russia as ‘a challenge to the world’s strategic stability’. Ostensibly, the US rationale for stationing interceptor missiles in Europe is to allow greater geographical proximity to ‘rogue states’ in the Middle East – such as Iran – that could use the threat of missile attack ‘to hold us hostage’ (in the words of President Bush). Yet the suspicion remains among Russia’s political and military elite that the real purpose of the interceptor sites is to nullify Russia’s offensive nuclear capability, and to enhance American influence in Eastern Europe (see the discussion of Russia on the interactive map for more detail; on US-Russia relations more broadly see Chapter 13 of the textbook, ‘US Foreign Policy in Russia’). Some even began to talk of a ‘New Cold War’ potentially emerging in the wake of apparently renewed Russian confidence in international affairs.
Whilst there may be an element of hyperbole to this, it is certainly true to say that relations between the US and Russia have become increasingly strained of late. In 2007 President Putin suspended Russia’s agreement to the CFE treaty (Conventional Forces in Europe treaty), which restricts the deployment of NATO and Russian troops in Europe. Similarly in June of 2007, Russia warned that Ukrainian ambitions to join NATO would threaten the ‘traditional fraternal relations’ between Ukraine and Russia, and it continues to oppose proposals for Ukrainian membership of NATO. More generally, Russia continues to be alarmed about the prospect of increased US influence in the Eastern Europe, particularly American cultivation of relations with the ‘New Europe’ (the former Soviet satellite states).
In this context, many within the Putin administration perceive the proposed stationing of missile interceptors (in Poland) and a radar-tracking station (in the Czech Republic) as part of a broader attempt to curb the influence of post-Soviet Russia. In part this suspicion carries over from the association of missile defences (or strategic defence) with the effort to combat the Soviet Union during the Cold War era. Then the antecedent of current US missile defence – President Reagan’s unsuccessful Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) or “Star Wars” as its critics came to know it – was viewed by the USSR as an effort to destabilize the Cold War nuclear balance in favour of the US and at the expense of Soviet security (see Chapter 7, ‘Military Power and US Foreign Policy’ for a broader discussion).
Many within Russia, including Putin himself who has now been replaced as president by the like-minded Dmitry Medvedev, have argued that BMD will have a similarly destabilizing effect on the contemporary strategic balance in Europe. President Bush, in talks with Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi this April (2008), attempted to develop some agreement on the proposed European sites for BMD components. The Bush administration has consistently made the case that these components are directed at the more ‘limited’ (in terms of missile numbers and technological sophistication) arsenals of states such as Iran. This was a point the US delegation at Sochi sough to reiterate, but Russian officials are generally less convinced of the extent of this threat. The idea of US-Russian collaboration on missile development was mooted (by Bush) as a possible way to ease Russian fears over US intentions, but ultimately Bush and Putin agreed only to the more diluted ‘strategic plan’ at the Black Sea summit, which essentially committed the US and Russia to cordial relations and left the issue largely unresolved.
The US is also experiencing some difficulties in ‘selling’ the idea of BMD to its proposed host states, Poland and the Czech Republic, although it has had some success after five years of negotiation on the issue. In late May 2008 the Czech government agreed in principle to a bilateral treaty that would allow for the basing of a radar station on Czech soil. Negotiations with Poland, the proposed site for ten interceptor missiles, are proving to be more protracted however. The Polish government, whilst seeing BMD as a means of committing the US to Polish security, wants its agreement to also encompass US assistance in the broader modernization of the Polish military. The US, it seems, will still have to contend with local demands as well as Russian opposition in the negotiation of its new European outposts for missile defence.
Think Points:
What are the prospects for a US-Russia agreement on the issue of missile defence?
Is the deployment of missile defences in Europe likely to enhance or diminish strategic stability in the region?
Is Russia right to fear the deployment of missile defences in Eastern Europe?
Why do states such as the Czech Republic and Poland want to be involved in BMD?
Are we witnessing the onset of a “New Cold War”?
How is the departure of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin from office likely to impact upon US-Russia relations?
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