An Analysis of The Obama Missile Defense Decision

President Obama's decision to scrap a major land-based portion of the worldwide missile defense architecture must be looked at along two major lines of analysis--military and political. I have blogged a bit about the military side here, but have remained largely silent on the political side of the equation.

First, on the military side of the equation, the President's plan is a sensible reaction to changes in the Iranian missile order of battle; more precisely, to our understanding of that order of battle. The Bush plan for land based sensors and interceptors (in Poland and the Czech Republic) was optimized against large, long-range ICBM's, which we believed would be operational in Iran in the 2015 timeframe. A new intelligence assessment indicates that Iran's long range missile programs have stalled in favor of short and medium range missiles, which are proliferating. The sea-based systems cited by the President--and land-based applications thereof and of existing land-based missile defense systems--are thought to be suitable to the threat as it is developing. It is my assessment--based on my knowledge of the threat, the sea-based systems, and the scrapped land-based system--that the President has not appreciably altered either European or American security with this decision. Clearly there is (military) risk in this decision, flowing from the possibility that the updated threat assessment is wrong, and that the Iranians have continued to move full steam ahead on their long-range weapons development program.

Now onto the politics of the decision.

First of all, the fact that that the intelligence assessment conveniently serves what was an openly stated policy goal of the Obama CAMPAIGN--cutting investment in missile defense and eliminating "unproven" systems--brings into question the legitimacy of the intelligence. Obviously, one can accuse the President of "pressuring" the intelligence community into reaching conclusions that support his policy (we've seen those charges before, haven't we. But don't hold your breath waiting for the media to make them against The One). But I don't think that's what was at work here. What I think is that the original Bush plan to cite weapons and sensors in Eastern Europe was a very forward leaning move--that is, that the Bush Administration sought to provide Europe and the United States with security against threats that were planned, rather than existed. But here's the interesting part--I think the Bush team KNEW that, and that they went ahead with their plan EXPLICITLY to rock the Russians back on their heels. The Russians objected to the Eastern European missile defense system from the start, claiming it was "aimed" at them. They claimed that it caused instability. Their breathless protests clearly went beyond a rational view (they were smart enough to know that missile defense systems are just that, defensive), but they were not going to sit idly by and watch the US operate openly in their sphere of influence. Russian pride was at stake here, and that pride was manifested in their Testostocrat President's (Putin) rhetoric, both private and public. The bottom line here: I think the Bush team went ahead with the system knowing all the while that at some point, they or some other administration might deal it away in order to get something tangible from the Russians.

So now we find ourselves having walking away from the system, unilaterally it would appear. What are the political and strategic consequences of that act? Firstly, we've hung the Czech and Polish governments out to dry in a big way. These former Soviet satellites gamely played along on the invasion of Iraq and put Western Europe to shame in the loyalty and support business. One cannot however, ignore the unpopularity of the missile system with both states' native populations. While the people didn't get that the system was defensive in nature, they did get that it pissed the Russians off, and that wasn't something they considered to be in their best interests.

By hanging the Czechs and the Poles out to dry (and now also Honduras, separately), we have placed in the minds of nations with whom we might do business in the future the seeds of doubt about the continuity of US foreign policy, and whether or not we can be considered a trustworthy friend.

Next, walking away from the land-based architecture in Eastern Europe emboldens an aleady hopped up Vlad Putin to think that he really is the Gangster of the Gulag. In the zero-sum game that is international power, we blinked. His position is made stronger, his rising dominance in European affairs is manifest, his shadow over Eastern Europe lengthens.

At the end of the day though, is there a strategic objective that might be worth 1) causing doubt as to US reliability and 2) emboldening Putin? Well, maybe. If removing the missile shield caused the Russians to lean on their lapdogs in Tehran in a manner meaningful to the policy goal of denying the Iranians nuclear weapons--well then maybe this was simply a natural and expected evolution of the Bush plan to site the weapons there in the first place. Do I think this is the case? I hope so. I have been resolute in the past that the higher you go in the two US political parties, the more alike they are on foreign and defense policies. The goals are similar, if not the same--what differs (sometimes markedly) are the methods. Only time will tell if this was a brilliant strategic move or a unilateral wave of the white flag designed to generate more money for domestic community organizing and socialized medicine. The Russians have the next move.