Russia’s angry response to an accord between Washington and Prague on building part of a U.S. missile defence shield in the Czech Republic is reminiscent of the rhetoric of the Cold War. Although Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Moscow still wants talks on the missile shield, his Foreign Ministry has threatened a “military-technical” response if the shield is deployed.
That phrase could have come straight out of the Soviet lexicon and seems more at home in the second half of the last century than now. Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer called it psychological pressure to try to encourage opposition to the missile system among Europeans, and described it as “the same sort that was used in the 1980s by the Soviet Union when the United States deployed cruise missiles in Europe.”
We are, of course, a long way from the tensions of the Cold War. But the dispute is reminiscent of the war of words between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1980s over another missile defence system — the Strategic Defence Initiative proposed by Ronald Reagan. His dream of a partly space-based missile system, otherwise known as Star Wars after George Lucas’ 1977 film, never became a reality but the row over it plagued Soviet-U.S. relations for years.
The disagreement over the missile defence system that George W. Bush now wants to be partly based in Europe risks having a similar impact on U.S.-Russian relations. Perhaps fittingly, it has been referred to as Son of Star Wars.
I was a correspondent in Moscow in the 1980s when the dispute over Star Wars was at its height. The disagreements were clear. Reagan wanted to deploy a multi-billion-dollar land- and space-based shield to shoot down incoming missiles. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said the programme would disrupt the nuclear balance and fuel an arms race in space, and expressed hope that Europe would not become “a testing-ground for the Pentagon’s doctrines of a limited nuclear war”.
The disagreement led to the collapse of a 1986 superpower summit in Iceland.
When I was back in Moscow in the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin were at loggerheads over U.S. plans for a Star Wars-style missile defence umbrella, even though Clinton had pulled the plug on Star Wars in 1993. Moscow said plans to develop the new missile defence system would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement Moscow saw as a cornerstone of global security.
Similar issues hung over Vladimir Putin’s presidency and now threaten to strike a severe blow to hopes of an improvement in U.S.-Russian ties at the very start of Medvedev’s presidency.
Washington says it needs a missile defence system based partly in Europe to provide protection against any attack on European or U.S. targets by rogue states such as Iran, which tested new long- and medium-range missiles on Wednesday. Russia says the missiles could threaten its own defences and might become a bigger threat over time it if the system expanded.
In the 1980s, Moscow was worried about a project that would have based missiles outside the former Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. It is now concerned about a system that would be even closer to home. A radar tracker is to be placed on Czech soil and, if a deal is reached with Warsaw, 10 interceptor missiles could be installed in Poland. Both Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia were members of the Warsaw Pact.
If Poland does not reach an agreement with the United States, Lithuania has been suggested an alternative site for the interceptors. That would be an even less welcome prospect for Moscow because the Baltic state was part of the Soviet Union. Little surprise, then, that Medvedev took a firm line on the issue in comments he made at the group of Eight summit in Japan.
But Moscow could risk shooting itself in the foot by reverting to rhetoric that harks back to the Cold War. Michal Kaminski, an aide to Polish President Lech Kaczynski said on Wednesday Russia’s reaction was unacceptable. He said it showed Poland should “strengthen our alliance with the United States because beyond our eastern border there are politicians who use a language we thought had vanished many years ago, the language of might and imperial ambitions.”
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I sincerely feel the people of both the Russia and USA are good, honest, hardworking people. Both countries do indeed have problems. The USA and Russia have a corrupt media. Conflict between the Russians and the USA sells papers. Both countries are ruled by special interests and greed.
We both need a three party system.
We really need a truly free press - Russians are afraid to voice their opinions - Americans are influenced by a press which is only interested in ratings. We all get a distorted view of reality.
Bush - beware of a man who feeds off of oil.
Putin - beware of a man who feeds off of oil.
Both men suffer from the same malady - the “short man complex”.
Short little men are by nature always attempting to prove themselves, using any means possible!
Just imagine what a great world this would be if our people had the real power to elect our leaders! We have the power to change our future. We need courage and commitment. As always, it’s up to all of us!
- Posted by Andre ZackUSA again stiring up trouble around the world for motives only known to the elite. Those (us) who are not in the know are all arguing amongst ourselves again (just like we did during Iraq and all the other wars in the past) When the truth finally comes out it is to late to do anything, those who agreed with US either change there tune or are to proud and some cases stupid to do so. The Elite know this and know also that most of us have short lived memories and they can do the same again and again.
I read some comments and astonished to read that people believe they know the facts (ie.. no warheads), are they in the know? No. Theses people are just repeating what they have been told by the square box or from another reapeater. When are people going to think for themselves? when are people going to realise that we are all brothers and sister’s? when are people going to value one live as the same as everyone elses life?
I keep seeing and hearing the word Democracy being thrown about. I am fed up with hearing people saying that democracy is freedom, how far from the truth these people really are. I live in a democracy and every day I hear the word spin being used by many reporters and politicians. But i never hear anyone discuss the meaning of spinning (lieing) or anyone one complaining. I believe that some people like living in a world of lies and fabrications as this has benifits for them (Elite, richest), others have not got a clue what reality is as they have been lied to from the very begining and gain nothing from the lies, if anything they loose out but still hold the flag up of demorcracy with pride. It makes me sad…
George Bush’s have always have named those who were evil and millions followed. George Bush once said that “communisim was evil” and millions agreed and fell sorry for those who lived in comminist staes etc, but when gorge bush sits in china (a comminist country applauding the chinese goverment for the olympic games etc) no one says anything…. I find this very odd.
I find it very odd also that Georgia attacks another state first and the western media only mentions russia behavoir!!!!
I find it very odd that the US are the only nation in the world to have ever used a nucluer weapon in history against another country, and they get to name the evil ones!!!!
before you start throwing accusations at me for being anti american or anti anything please think before doing so? I am anti killing innocent people.
- Posted by Alex (UK)By the way, thanks for the reference to the blog, I will have a look at it…
and it just occurred to me that being a senior manager in the energy business isn’t all that attractive in terms of world view… look at Dick Cheney
- Posted by Paul ValletBrandon,
For my part I’m still not convinced that the issue of the missile shield can be summarized as “just another neocon initiative to to confront Russia”. As you remind us, rightly, these interceptors are few in number and what more, the technology is still far from tried and successful (and it’s been almost thirty years in the making, so that still leaves us a lot of time before one can be sure that the whole scheme does work… the best objection I would have to the shield is its financial cost for an uncertain technological return). Hence the protection it offers is in only case against the launch of a single rocket… which is very little compared to Russian capacities. This is why it takes a lot of convincing to believe that Russia’s nuclear deterrent is supposedly threatened by the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.
For clarity’s sake, I’d like to stress that I am not in a position of systematic incomprehension of Russian points of view. I follow Russian politics for professional reasons, I’ve met and talked with a lot of Russians IRL, and I’ve traveled to the country twice. I am also learning the language. However, on this issue, I am not convinced by the objections that Russians and their government make to this scheme. If Russia had done everything it could to halt proliferation of balistic weapons (and the Soviet Union before that) I might have a more sympathetic ear, but we have a historical legacy of Soviet/Russian balistic sales to developing countries, which then developed more powerful models, and therefore it is a situation that has to be lived with. The shield might offer only limited protection, but I believe an attempt at some sort of insurance is legitimate, and worth making; and if Russia would associate itself to this attempt I would feel very pleased. As you do I think Russo-American relations should improve and make the world a better place.
On the subject of Putin’s past career I’m sorry if it irks you, but it is a fact that this past career has shaped his experiences and world view… you will note that I never said it disqualified him, but that some behavior can be expected out of this. Besides, Putin is hardly the only ex political police (that term applies way more to the KGB than foreign intelligence, which was a very small part of what the Committee for State Security did in Soviet times) type among the Russian leadership. It’s fair to say that the KGB has been somewhat compared to a sort of Graduate School of Government, its personnel had access to the most accurate information, could travel abroad, knew foreign languages… but their essential brief was to command and control and repress. That’s a different kind of learning curve than one acquired as Director of Central Intelligence… as for the son, if he’d actually been CIA or learned something from his father, he might (well, we never know) have turned out more “intelligent” (sorry for the pun)
Perhaps the ex KGB types will not have such an importance in Russia once this generation has passed. After all President Medvedev reflects a new type, that of the management of major state monopoly businesses (Gazprom). They may be ruthless tycoons when they want to, but it still leaves them with a different world vision than that of a policeman.
- Posted by Paul Vallet