News > February 27, 2007

Return of the Cold War

By Tony Wesolowsky (Prague)

A member of "Young Russia" in a gas mask in front of a poster reading "Czech Today, Ukraine Tomorrow" during a rally against Czech participation in U.S. anti-missile defense system, near the Czech embassy in Moscow.

As if the Bush administration didn’t already have its hands full with the “war on terror” spiraling out of control in Iraq and Afghanistan, its Jan. 20 announcement that it plans to expand the proposed U.S. missile defense system into the former Warsaw Pact nations Poland and the Czech Republic is threatening to re-kindle the Cold War.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken out forcefully against the proposal, calling it emblematic of the United States’ “increasing disregard for the fundamental principles of international law.” In response, he threatened to pull Russia out of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which spells out how many soldiers and how much military hardware can be deployed throughout the continent.

Putin isn’t alone in his anger. Several hundred people gathered on a snowy day in late January at Wenceslas Square in Prague, to protest the controversial anti-missile defense system. The proposed construction has sparked debate in the central European country and mobilized progressives who oppose it.

Referring to the Soviet crackdown on the “Prague Spring” reform of 1968, demonstrators held up placards reading: “1968 — Go Home, Ivan! 2007 — Go home, John!” Pavel, a Prague university student, said he was tired of his government “kissing someone’s ass.”

Under the proposal, the Czechs would house the radar system and the Poles the silos with 10 rockets to shoot down missiles fired from “rogue regimes” like Iran and North Korea. The United States already has missile interceptor sites in California and Alaska.

A missile site in Poland would be the first part of the anti-missile shield outside the United States and the only one in Europe. “The government does not have a mandate to authorize the base,” says Jan Tamas, a leader of the “No Base” movement, which is calling for the issue to be decided in a national referendum.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has opposed the the idea, arguing that “security issues usually are not decided by referendum.” “Locating the base here will undoubtedly improve the security of the Czech Republic and Czech citizens,” Topolanek said.

But many Czechs fear the base will make them the target of terrorist attacks as they are dragged into Washington’s geopolitical schemes. Nevertheless, several polls show a majority of Czechs back the plan if it entails only a radar base, perhaps in hopes that in exchange the United States will drop visa requirements (and the onerous fees) for them. Lingering fears of Russia may also be tipping many Poles and Czechs into the arms, literally, of the Americans.

Backers also see it as a chance for the Czech Republic to do its part in the “war on terror.” Most prominent among them is former dissident, playwright and president, Vaclav Havel, who has backed several American interventions, including the Iraq war (although he now advocates for a U.S. withdrawal).

“Do the Czechs want to be a modern European society, which feels a shared responsibility for the state of the world,” Havel asked on Jan. 25, “or would we prefer to leave the resolution of global problems to others?”

Topolanek faces a tough fight to win parliamentary backing for the American plan. His fragile center-right government was cobbled together in January after seven months of on-again, off-again talks. Topolanek’s Civic Democratic Party generally supports the radar scheme, but the coalition partner Christian Democrats are less enthusiastic, and the third and oddest member of the government, the Greens, are the most hostile, saying it would back the plan only if it is part of a NATO system and not just an American one.Ê

The leader of the opposition Social Democrats, Jiri Paroubek, has said most of his party’s members oppose the idea. In early February, Paroubek backed off from calls for a referendum after “being leaned on,” by U.S. officials in Prague, according to the London Guardian. Still, the Social Democrats and, even more so, the Czech and Moravian Communist Party are in the opposition camp.

Some of the wariest Czechs are those living in Jince, about 30 miles southwest of Prague, where the United States wants to base the radar installation at a former military site. Protests have been held there as well.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg visited the region in February to meet nervous local mayors and reassure them that hosting about 200 Americans will pump up the local economy.

“The Cold War is returning to Europe,” says Josef Hruby, mayor of Zajecov, who met with Schwarzenberg. “I just don’t want to live through my kids having to learn how to put on gas masks.”

Judging by the rhetoric, Russian fears dwarf Czech concerns. On Jan. 23, Vladimir Popovkin, who commands Russia’s space forces, told Russian news agencies Interfax and ITAR-TASS, “The radar in the Czech Republic would be able to monitor rocket [Russian] installations in central Russia and the Northern Fleet.” And on Feb. 19, General Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia’s missiles forces, upped the ante, saying, “If the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic take a decision to this effect, the strategic missile troops will be capable of having these facilities as targets.”

On the same day in Warsaw, Topolenek and his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski said the system was not aimed at Russia and expressed their clearest support yet for the plan.

Russia wants Washington to promise in writing that the missile system is not aimed at its country, according to a Feb. 6 Interfax report. “The Russians say, ‘This is my backyard. You need our cooperation.’ They are right. You cannot stop Iran or contain Iran without Russia. You need the Russians on board,” Andrew Brookes, a space technology expert at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the AFP news agency on Jan. 26.

Some experts question the point, militarily at least, in building a radar station in the Czech Republic. According to Bruno Gruselle, a researcher at the Paris-based Strategic Research Foundation, “the U.S. military already has radar stations in Norway, in Greenland, and in Britain — on top of its Defense Support System satellite alert system — which permit the early detection of missiles, wherever they come from.”

There’s also the question of whether the missile defense system will ever be functional. Despite being the single largest defense research and development project in U.S. history, with the Bush administration spending more than $40 billion on the program, only five of its 10 tests have been successful, and all of those were achieved within carefully controlled environments that did not reflect real-world conditions.

Perhaps the U.S. goal is more political than military. In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that maintaining U.S. primacy would require Washington “to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to prevent the barbarians from coming together.”

None of the vassals here in “New Europe” are making any mention of that.

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• Reader Comments

  Hmmm no mention of Putin threatening the Poles and Czechs with
  “If the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic take such a step ... the Strategic Missile Forces will be capable of targeting these facilities if a relevant decision is made,”

  Threatening your neighbors with imminent destruction........Now thats diplomacy.

  Posted by texasindependent on Feb 27, 2007 at 12:49 PM

  Those states ARE RIGHT ON HIS BORDER, BEANER FUCKFACE.
  Would the US have stood by while Mexico and Guatemala and Canada
  have joined the Warsaw Pact ? This proves NATO was never a defensive organization but an imperialist one, the Soviets were NEVER
  a threat. Only in the areas they defeated the Germans in. Never western
  Europe, never the US. See Noam Chomsky’s book on the Cold War,
  see Chalmers Johnson’s just published Nemesis on the coming fall of the US Empire and see DF Fleming’s magisterial 2 vol The Cold War And Its Origins, 1960. TexASS got brain poisoning from his loco Taco Bell.

  Posted by blondemike on Feb 27, 2007 at 6:59 PM

  Lets look at reality not left wing loons hucking a book.

  1. The Soviet Union was created by force. The citizens of Eastern Europe did not volunteer to join. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Stalin’s troops simply rounded up anyone who dissented and formed a pro-Soviet government. Any rational European country had only three choices join NATO, join the Warsaw pact, or declare neutrality.

  2. A missle defense system is not an offensive weapon. Radar sites can not attack anything. Interceptor missles have a limited range and are designed to attack ballistic missles in near space trajectories. They have no offensive capabilities as surface to surface missles.

  3. The only possible reason for Russia’s outrage lies in the massive proliferation of nuclear weapons and delivery systems as enabled by Moscow. The new Iranian scud variants are fueled and guided by Russian technology. The Russians lost billions on arms sales to Saddam and stand to lose more as the futility of Iranian nuclear ambitions become clear. While a missle defense system offers limited protection from a single accidental launch it really offers no protection against a silo clearing nuclear strike. This simple fact as stated by Russian general staff has no bearing on Russian-American relations. So the introduction of a missle defense system has no bearing on the status quo of MAD.

  4. The question becomes why the outcry? Is it related to the loss of empire over Star Wars? If Poland were installing IRBM’s the issue would be clear. As it stands Putin seems like the guilty dog barking first.

  Posted by texasindependent on Mar 2, 2007 at 4:13 PM

  This is not much more than more rewards for the military-industrial-complex. A system that at best worked half the time under optimum conditions is closer to a bondoogle than a effective system. Boeing and others get to cash more paychecks written by our Congress which of course comes out of our wallets. For what? Something that might work half the time. What a scam and a rip-off of our taxes.

  If we used weaponry in Iraq that only worked half the time (at best under optimum conditions) the soldiers would practically mutiny, at the least major investigations would ensue. Could you imagine if their rifles only worked half the time? Or that the humvees couldn’t start half the time?

  But a half working missile defense system isn’t important because the likelihood of it actually being used is negligible. The importance of the system is only to the defense contractors, not that it works well, but that their contracts continue. The Bush Admin is just looking for places to put this half baked system in order to justify the billions stolen out of our wallets to build these nearly useless contraptions.

  Posted by Jon B on Mar 7, 2007 at 8:06 AM

  The USA was created by force as was the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Roman Empire. Of course, the East European states didn’t volunteer, they were Hitler allies and the Soviets rolled over them in the course of defeating the Germans. EVERY country in eastern Europe except Czechoslovakia was a fascist dictatorship before the Soviet takeover and while the Soviet takeover was a bad thing, the US has a much bigger and more brutal empire in Latin America. Guatemala
  alone has killed over 300,000 of its citizens since the US overthrow of its democracy in 1954. Just like in Iran withe Shah. The Soviets have a rational historical fear of being encircled and this has nothing to do with being leftist, I’m a hardcore libertarian, so as usual your wrong. These missile systems are NOT defensive and are set up to guarantee that the enemy could not respond to a first strike. SDI would have guaranteed a nuclear war which is why Nancy got Ron to call it off. With the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE REASON FOR NATO. Its continued existence verifies the charges it was always a weapon of imperialism, not a defense pact. Imagine our reaction if the Russians tried to do the same with Mexico, etc. Even when the Soviets were in Cuba, we still had the biggest foreign base at GITMO, now infamous thanks to Rummy’s torture tactics. There was never a Soviet military threat to WESTERN Europe. They were never in western Europe to fight the Germans and the victory in WW2 in EUROPE was 90% a Soviet victory. US victory was in Asia against the Japs. Your false positing of the choices for Europe after WW2 is indicative of your plain stupidity in all historical matters. See David Horowitz’s (yes, THAT one) brilliant 1965 book The Free World Colossus for how the US was at fault for the Cold War, NOT the USSR. Also see the magisterial two volume The Cold War And Its Origins by DF Fleming, 1960. David based his work on Fleming. I have to warn you that Fleming’s is a two volume work with no pitchers, Tex, I know you folks down there aren’t big on book larnin.’

  Posted by blondemike on Mar 9, 2007 at 6:38 PM

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