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Defense shield long in coming

'Star Wars' brought focus to long-term U.S. project

June 6th, 2007 issue

Photo courtesy of BOEING
An interceptor test launch in July 2000.
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In September 1944, German forces launched the first-ever successful missile attack against London.
The radar debate: Key arguments

For the base:
Enhance European security. The shield is intended as a
protection against possible attacks from Iran and North Korea
Strengthen ties with the United States. Stationing the radar base on Czech soil would foster cooperation with the U.S. and could strengthen the overall trans-Atlantic alliance
Pull weight in NATO. Hosting the base is a way the nation can fulfill its NATO defense
obligations and enhance its importance in the alliance
Reap financial benefits. The country would likely see some of the billions of U.S. dollars poured into the project. It's free for Czechs. The U.S. would foot the entire bill
Against the base:
Becoming a target. By hosting the base, the country heightens the possibility it will be targeted by NATO foes and by incoming missiles intended to blind allied defenses
Too close to the U.S. The perception of alignment with U.S. foreign policy could hurt the Czech Republic
Foreign troops. Hosting the radar facility would require around 200 U.S. soldiers to be based here, a scenario too close to occupation for comfort
Divide Europe. The shield leaves some countries in Europe unprotected and could also aggravate political rifts
Irritate Russia. Involvement in the U.S. shield provokes
hostile responses from the Eastern giant

In July of the following year, a delegation of U.S. officers traveled to Europe to investigate. Their conclusion: The United States needed to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses.
Within a year, the missile age had begun and so had the United States’ quest to build a shield. Neither has stopped since. Although ever-present, this issue has at times risen to the surface of public consciousness and debate.
In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s notorious Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or “Star Wars”) program marked the highest-profile phase of the ongoing push toward a missile shield. Research, development and testing of new technologies, including space-based chemical weapons and ground-based laser weapons, continued through the 1980s with mixed results. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, criticism of the need for such a program mounted. In his 1991 State of the Union address, President George H. W. Bush announced that SDI’s mission would change from defense against a large-scale attack to “protection against limited ballistic missile strikes — whatever their source.”
With this change in vision, Reagan’s aspirations were never fully realized. But in 2004 the U.S. deployed a limited national shield, with bases in California and Alaska and 18 interceptor missiles to protect, in theory, all of North America.
Today, as the United States seeks to expand its missile defenses to Europe, the Czech Republic and Poland are weighing whether to join the program.
A changed world
Defense experts say the latest round of renewed interest in missile defenses has its roots in the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union disintegrated and the United States was fighting its first war in Iraq.
During the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction kept both superpowers in check. As Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra, put it, “Both sides had something in common — they behaved rationally and with an interest in survival.”
Throughout the 1990s, the discussion of an anti-missile shield “changed dramatically,” Vondra said. A failed USSR raised the specter of an unprotected nuclear arsenal and of a cash-strapped country that could sell its weapons, nuclear materials and expertise to so-called rogue states, epitomized today by Iran and North Korea.
At the same time, the United States experienced its first reported successes with anti-ballistic missiles in combat, during the first Gulf War. Since then, missiles called hit-to-kill interceptors have reportedly struck down missiles during the current conflict in Iraq.
By the late 1990s, U.S. President Bill Clinton had authorized the development of a missile-defense shield; the decision was influenced by North Korean missile tests in 1998. The United States continued pouring billions of dollars into missile defense development and testing.
After the turn of the century, the project appears to have sped up. U.S. President George W. Bush focused on missile defenses and found a cooperative Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11. In December of that year, the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed in 1972, so that it could fully develop a shield.
In 2002, according to Vondra, the first discussions of transforming a national U.S. missile shield into a trans-Atlantic system began. “The United States asked many of our NATO allies several years ago to consider hosting elements of the system in Europe,” U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Richard Graber said in March.
In 2003, the United States began talks with the United Kingdom on missile defense, according to UK defense expert Tim Williams. By that December, the two countries reached an agreement to set up a radar in the United Kingdom at Fylingdales, North Yorkshire.
A similar agreement was reached with Denmark in October 2005 and led to a radar installation in Greenland. Both of these bases are early-warning detection systems, unlike the radar facility that would be placed in the Czech Republic.
That same year, the United States began to look to this country as a potential partner in missile defense.
Jiří Paroubek, prime minister at the time, said in April 2006: “What has been going on so far, for a number of years, is an exchange of information between the U.S. defense and European experts, including experts from the Czech Republic.”
U.S. officials toured possible sites in the summer of 2006 and made an official request to begin talks this January. In March, the government agreed to the talks, which began in May.
Officials have said that an answer to the U.S. request is likely by the end of the year.
— Kimberly Ashton


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