Pirate's Cove

With all due respect, there were quite a lot of people on the Right getting upset over Obama’sdecision to do away with the Poland-Czechoslovakia radar/missile shield that President Bush had envisioned. Yes, there were two reasons to be concerned. One, President Chump decided to make this announcement on the 70th anniversary of Russia invading Poland, and second, because it seemed, as John Hawkins points out, a total capitulation to Russia. Bad moves both by Obama.

However, what is the actual plan? After spending quite a bit of time explaining why Russia was annoyed by the Bush plan, and unintentionally pointing out why Obama is pulling a Chamberlain to Russia (the missiles were not the problem, the X-band 360 degree radar was) the NY Times gets to the heart of the matter

How then does the Obama plan address those concerns? Mr. Obama ordered the development of a system that would deploy smaller SM-3 interceptors in 2011, at first on ships but later on land in Europe, aimed more at short- and medium-range Iranian missiles rather than the intercontinental missiles Russia has. The radar in the Czech Republic would no longer be needed; instead new land, air and space sensors would be relied on to track missile launches and their trajectories.

…the Obama administration said it planned to deploy the SM-3s in as many as three land-based sites in Europe starting in 2015 and offered both Poland and the Czech Republic the opportunity to host those missiles. Since Poland was willing to host the larger interceptor missiles as part of the Bush plan, it presumably might accept the smaller missiles Mr. Obama wants to use.

If the idea is simply to create a system to intercept Iranian missiles aimed at Europe, than this is a good plan. And, it should be, since military leaders came up with it. If the job gets done, and the shield for Europe is better, hey, good deal.

Of course, to go pure partisan, I certainly can envision Obama telling the military to come up with another plan that wasn’t so mean to Russia. However,

“The Russians are probably not going to be pleased that we are continuing with missile defense efforts in Europe,” said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. “But at the same time, there are two changes in this architecture that should allay some of their, what we think, unfounded concerns.” Those would be the elimination of the radar in the Czech Republic and the switch to smaller missiles that “they simply cannot, at least rationally, argue bears any kind of threat to Russia,” he said.

Encapsulated in that one paragraph is the notion that we are not abandoning Europe, yet, are appeasing Russia. Ben Smith tells us that Polish PM Donald Tusk was first called by Hillary Clinton, but wouldn’t accept the call because it was against protocol. So, the first attempted contact to tell Poland was not even done correctly. He also refused to take Obama’s first call, but, took his second.

And, this little plan upsets many in Eastern Europe, who are still concerned about the threat from Russia, which rather shows that it was not about the the missiles, but the radar. Obama’s just making more and more friends in Europe!

That said, we can applaud that there is a plan that will do the same thing as the stated goal of President Bush’s plan, to stop Iranian missiles, and, we can also slam him for abandoning Eastern Europe allies and appeasing Russia.

Provided the missile plan doesn’t get abandoned, as well.