Missile Defense: The U.S. has abandoned plans to install a missile defense system in Europe, according to a report. If true, this is a major strategic error that will have serious consequences for our allies in Europe and for us.
Quoting a U.S. source, the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza says the Obama administration has decided against building a missile shield to protect Poland and the Czech Republic. The reason? Russian opposition.
Now, if we want to build a defense system for friends in Europe, we'll have to place it in the Balkans, Israel or somewhere else. That is, if Russia approves.
This is a stark reversal of past policy and reneges on promises made by the current administration. Worse, it shows weakness. We got into a staredown with the Russian bear and we blinked.
President Obama has vowed to support missile defense, provided it was "pragmatic and cost-effective." Well, the Congressional Budget Office rated the system going into Poland and the Czech Republic as the most effective of the alternatives.
As for promises to our allies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just this month said the U.S. would offer our allies a "defense umbrella" against threats from a possible Iranian nuclear weapon.
Now, all that high-sounding defense rhetoric is out the window.
Coupled with the $1.2 billion slashed from the missile defense budget this year, the administration is making clear it hopes to kill off missile defense -- a mistake we may all come to regret.
We've just weakened America's standing in a critical region of the world -- Eastern Europe -- and let our allies down. We've made them vulnerable, in ways that only we could, to Russia's growing military menace. Polish and Czech friends who had relied on us to stand firm and keep our word no doubt feel betrayed.
This diminishes our global influence. What smallish country will now take our word at face value when we promise to protect them?
The U.S. abandonment of the so-called "third site" development of 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar array in the Czech Republic signals our weakness to both Russia and Iran.
Iran, as some have recently estimated, is less than a year away from having a workable nuclear weapon. Germany's intelligence agency, the BND, said in July that Iran will have the means to produce a nuclear weapon within six months. So the threat is growing.
On Feb. 2, Iran successfully launched a satellite using rocket technology that would be directly applicable to creating a long-range ballistic missile. It'll soon be able to deliver a nuke.
Worst of all, according to the New York Times, President Obama in February sent a secret letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev offering to scrap our Eastern European missile defense in exchange for help with Iran's burgeoning nuclear threat.
So far, it hasn't been much of a deal. And as we scale down our defense efforts, Russia is boosting military spending at double-digit rates. Here we have all but abandoned the testing and rebuilding of our nuclear deterrent, and Russia only last month test-launched two new Sineva class sub-based ICBMs.
Whom do you think they're trying to intimidate?
Meanwhile, as the Heritage Foundation noted last month: "Iran has the capability to strike at Israel and South-Eastern Europe, including NATO members such as Greece, Bulgaria and Romania." With a bit of enhanced technology, Iran's Shahab missiles may soon put virtually all of Europe, Israel and India under direct threat.
Nothing good can come from showing potential enemies that America folds when threatened. Weakness emboldens bullies. The best deterrent for potential foes is for them to know that any attack will bring swift and devastating retaliation.
The threat to us and our allies from rogue states with weapons of mass destruction is quite real. If we vow to protect our friends, we must follow through -- or lose influence and let the bullies run free.
New technologies, including electromagnetic pulse weapons, that could knock out our electrical grid and paralyze our country, will soon be part of our enemy's arsenals -- if they're not already.
Given the threat to millions of American lives -- not to mention millions of our allies -- reducing missile defense is both dangerous and irresponsible. President Obama should rethink his decision to pull back on missile defense before it's too late.
Source: Investor's Business Daily
