World Economy

Jul 20, 2008

Czech Republic and Poland)

It is true that the situation is deteriorating on a regular basis, especially in negotiations between the U.S. and the two so-called "host country"
The opinions and analysis on the anti-missile system (BMDE) that the U.S. wants to install in Europe (Czech Republic and Poland) is now color pessimism over the black. A report for UPI on June 19, Nikita Petrov, particularly state of a "round table" held in Moscow under the auspices of the Carnegie Center, which saw many U.S. experts make predictions actually pessimistic about the future of BMDE.

It is true that the situation is deteriorating on a regular basis, especially in negotiations between the U.S. and the two so-called "host country" (Czech Republic and Poland), where agreements were a foregone conclusion. (In the Czech Republic, the agreement was presented as closed last February.) Already, the Pentagon seeks an "alternative" to Poland (one speaks of Lithuania), while stating that negotiations with the same Poland continue in the best possible mood. (These remarks refreshing in Defense News, 16 June, telling us that everything is fine with Poland and is seeking something else: "U.S. Air Force Gen. Henry" Trey "Obering, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA ), Said he is confident Poland will ultimately agree to host the proposed interceptor site. However, the United States is developing a backup plan involving other countries, he said. ")

Petrov, UPI, summarizes the situation of negotiations this way:

"The Czech government is on the verge of a crisis. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said his cabinet might collapse in the fall. He admitted the Cabinet lost a firm majority in Parliament over the possible deployment of a high-frequency radar of the U.S. third positioning strategic missile defense area in the Czech Republic. Environmentalist deputies did not even want to hear about it, while others insist on a nationwide referendum, which the government can not win because 68 percent of the population is emphatically against the deployment.

"The situation in the Czech Republic is not the only bad news for the Pentagon. U.S. relations with Poland are even worse. Warsaw demands that Washington pay $ 20 billion for the missile interceptor base at Gorsko. Poland wants to spend the money on reforming its armed forces and protecting itself against a potential Russian threat. It is planning, among other things, to buy American Patriot PAC-3 air defense systems. "

There is a huge disagreement between Poland and the Pentagon on the issue of big. Some sources in Brussels indicate that there is a difference of about 1 to 50, between what is ready to give the Pentagon and the minimum that are willing to accept Polish. The Polish n'espèrent agree more with the current administration, and this perspective is reinforced by a strong skepticism about the entire programme.

On the financial front, there is the news that the House of Representatives has reduced the budget of anti-missile system for $ 720 million, with details concerning the restrictive BMDE. These points allow us to move on the reunion center of the Carnegie Moscow.

"Expenses on the construction of bases in the Czech Republic and Poland have been reduced by $ 232 million. Congress declared this restriction would be valid until Washington signed agreements with Prague and Warsaw on the deployment of the radar and missile interceptors on their territory.

"This means the current Republican administration will not be able to start the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe. Leading U.S. experts on missile defense - Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, and Philip Coyle, senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information - expressed this view at the Carnegie Center during their recent visit to Moscow.

"The Carnegie Center hosted a roundtable discussion on the future of missile defenses in U.S. strategy and policy, and the American experts, both Democrats, agreed that if their nominee Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Wins the presidential election, which is quite likely, the deployment of the missile defense system in Europe, which Russia worries so much, may be put on the back burner.

"This may happen not only because the Pentagon can not reach a final agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic, but also because the threat emanating for the United States from ballistic missiles from''rogue states,''among which Washington lists Iran, is not as severe as the administration portrays it. "

Broadly speaking, and in general, we can advance the hypothesis that the program BMDE begins to sink, including, mainly in the Pentagon budget crisis, with the prospect of a Congress increasingly aggressive as we approach the end of the Bush administration. At the same time, the reality of this business, based on a simple thrust of the military-industrial complex and supported on a surreal argument strategic strength to be a forger, contributes to a discrediting of the program.

It becomes likely that the BMDE could perish its beautiful death bureaucratic, by lack of money and a general disinterest among the "allies" in Europe (Czech Republic and Poland) for a case which has become much more risk than domestic 'Political and financial advantages. The BMDE is emerging for what it is - a simple program of military-industrial complex to run money. That would be yet not without political consequence as the argument to "sell" this program has actually been a mounting political and strategic support on the fiction of power and the U.S. alliance and that this is - the power and the U.S. alliance - which essuierait a defeat with the abandonment of the program.

by erectusplus at 7:20 AM |