POLAND: US MISSILE SHIELD
Published in B&E- 03 May 2007
The George Bush way to history
The global missile shield system is a shrewd move to start an arms race
Adventuring & audacity have been the hallmarks of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. This is proved beyond doubt by the Pentagon’s latest move to install a few elements of its proposed missile shield on Polish territory (10 anti-missiles) and the proposed installation of a radar tracking system in the Czech Republic. The apparent reason for expanding the missile cover to Central Europe is not the threat from Russia, but a perceived threat of incoming missiles from Iran and North Korea. Such flimsy arguments have however failed to impress Moscow and Berlin. Russia sees this as a new ‘containment’ strategy and the EU is palpably piqued because the US brashness has the elements to create wedges between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Europe. States Radoslaw Sikorski, former Polish Defence Minister, “The US should explain its plans more openly to avoid dividing the European alliance; and how and on what timetable it would include the Central European facilities within an ultimate NATO infrastructure.” Furthermore, the US move looks like an attempt to co-opt pliant states to mould the international nuclear regime. Clearly, the move, apart from reinforcing American hegemony, has also been deliberately calibrated by the US to ensure a new arms race begins, thus allowing them justification to arm up further! Says Goetz Neuneck of Institute for Peace Research & Security Policy, Hamburg University, “The global missile defence (system) is the end of strategic disarmament.” We couldn’t agree more!
Adventuring & audacity have been the hallmarks of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. This is proved beyond doubt by the Pentagon’s latest move to install a few elements of its proposed missile shield on Polish territory (10 anti-missiles) and the proposed installation of a radar tracking system in the Czech Republic. The apparent reason for expanding the missile cover to Central Europe is not the threat from Russia, but a perceived threat of incoming missiles from Iran and North Korea. Such flimsy arguments have however failed to impress Moscow and Berlin. Russia sees this as a new ‘containment’ strategy and the EU is palpably piqued because the US brashness has the elements to create wedges between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Europe. States Radoslaw Sikorski, former Polish Defence Minister, “The US should explain its plans more openly to avoid dividing the European alliance; and how and on what timetable it would include the Central European facilities within an ultimate NATO infrastructure.” Furthermore, the US move looks like an attempt to co-opt pliant states to mould the international nuclear regime. Clearly, the move, apart from reinforcing American hegemony, has also been deliberately calibrated by the US to ensure a new arms race begins, thus allowing them justification to arm up further! Says Goetz Neuneck of Institute for Peace Research & Security Policy, Hamburg University, “The global missile defence (system) is the end of strategic disarmament.” We couldn’t agree more!
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