New Yorker in DC on the War’s Effect on the Near Abroad
New Yorker in DC has done an excellent region by region breakdown of the effect of the Russo-Georgian War on Russia’s “Near Abroad” as well as neighboring states, some which were formerly part of the Eastern Bloc and others, such as Turkey, that are NATO allies. It’s a very long post with many links but I wanted to highlight one particular section, from the introduction:
The situation in the Caucasus is slowly deteriorating. First, Poland and the United States reached an agreement on the missile shield to include 10 interceptor rockets at a base in northern Poland, and seemingly in response, Russia’s military pushed deeper into Georgian territory. Moreover, Russia also raised the ante by hinting that the US would have to choose, and soon, between what it refers to as its “Special Project” or issues which are more important to the US and the international community; mainly, Iran and North Korea. According to the AP, the US agreed in the deal with Poland, and in defiance of Russia’s recent victory, to include a declaration that the US will aid Poland militarily in case of a threat from a third country, and will establish a permanent American base on Polish soil.
The negotiations regarding missile defense have been ongoing but the sudden agreement with Poland was most likely intended by the Bush administration as diplomatic retaliation against Moscow for failing to adhere to the cease-fire agreement in Georgia.
In one sense, this might be a useful move to demonstrate that Russia’s policy in Georgia will come with a set of costs and that Poland’s swift adherence, after much earlier footdragging by Warsaw, indicates the unhappiness and alram of Russia’s neighbors. Unfortunately, it also represents more “flailing about” by the Bush administration to grab something that was already in the pipeline that the Russians would find particularly irritating in a country that is deeply anti-Russian for very good reasons.
Easy to do but putting an anti-missile unit in Poland really does not accrue us any new diplomatic leverage in the crisis. Or military advantages ( unless we are to believe that Putin intends to attack Poland, a member of NATO, with just one or two nuclear missiles -if so, problem solved!). In terms of reaching a declared goal of getting Russia out of Georgia this move was probably a net loss. But in the absence of any overarching strategy in Washington for Russian-American relations, the best that can be managed are tactical moves in isolation.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Zen, The Polish site was never intended to defend Poland per se — rather, it’s the ideal place to defend against great circle-path launches from Iran toward Europe. (Think of ballistic trajectories as a 2-D plane that intersects the launch point, the target and the center of the earth; ibid. for airline paths, since the shortest path between two points in the northern hemisphere will arc to the north.)
Of course, I intend to learn a whole lot more about this in a couple weeks when I report for duty at MDA. So consider this just a slightly biased perspective… 🙂
August 16th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Your professional bias as an imminent employee of MDA is duly noted but accepted, Wiz. 😉
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All true enough. However the Russians feel otherwise ( though missile defense on this scale and location is irrelevant to Russia’s massive nuclear capabilities – it’s a slippery slope paranoia issue with them) and the timing here was specifically meant as a shtirk to the Bear. I have to think though that some of the diplomatic effect was mitigated by an expectation in the Russian MoD that we would eventually get our way on missile defense anyway, if not so soon.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:55 am
as noted by dan tdaxp, the proposed anti-ballistic missle defence system in question is indeed a defensive weapon against the likes of iran, but an offensive, first-strike weapon against russia. (sorry, don’t have the link right off.)
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
I dunno…do these anti – missile systems REALLY work, or are they just some sorta HYPE? Perhaps for the benefit of reaping profits for certain nodes in the military – industrial complex? What’s your take on this, Zen? Clear my queries, anyone.