Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

"...[T]he right timing"?!?

So you think announcing this on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland was appropriate?

Tom,
Will you please elaborate on this? Which "close in" friends are you speaking of? How do they feature in this decision? Are they even reliably friendly?

He should have gotten something in exchange. I agree he should have at some point shut this program down since it is too expensive and doesn't work. Tossing it unilaterally in exchange for nothing looks weak. The Russians hated the thing. He should have gotten a trade. Also, the thing was an implicit promise to the Poles and Czechs, and he sent a signal to every relatively weak country in the world that relies on our protection that we will drop you unilaterally for our own reasons without notice. That inspires self-help and even potentially nuclear proliferation. Also, he should have done it a day before or a day after the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. People pay attention to anniversaries in places where they have a lot of painful history.

Right outcome, poor handling.

Considering the fact, that the Poles will see this move as appeasing Russia, the timing seems very odd to me, as it came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

While I consider myself nowhere near being an Isolationist, I cannot see the justification of this country providing ANY missile defense for any part of Europe . . Unless Europe asks for and PAYS for it!

We protected Europe from Russia and Eastern Europe for over 40 years at an unbelievable cost, with little or no monetary assistance from them . . and now we were going to protect them from the very people they have helped get Nuclear bomb and delivery technology?

While I'm no Obama fan . . Thank you, Barack . .

There is a news article about a NATO official recommending a joint NATO/US/Russian missile defense effort. That timing is not an accident.

The 'new' approach has been available for years, but received little media or gov't dialogue.

It still has not been discussed openly with regard to N. Korea which is a real nut case threat.

I have a couple of questions.
With this article that came out.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090918/ap_on_re_eu/eu_eastern_europe_missile_defense_22
How can we trust them?
Then billary said we will raise sanctions against them? Were we not doing that already being tough on them? Then the old ways were not working.

The missile defense thing was a waste of money. Glad were out of there. It's just Poland anyway. It's not like they were our friends. Were they?

Please, the 70th anniversary?

Obama announces a week before and we hear, "And he announced only a week before the 70th ...." Ditto for any other date you can name.

Please, let's elevate the discussion some to actual strategy vice this in-the-weeds griping.

The timing point argument I made was about Obama dragging out the decision suitably. I guess neither he nor I checked our "Aggrieved Nations Calendar 2009."

Now we'll get proven technology faster and more appropriately and flexibly placed. No Maginot Lines, if you require a historical reference.

As for now casting this whole thing as a "betrayal" of Poland or the CR, that's too rich. Sold as a measure to defend against Iran and nowhere near enough to stop the Russians from doing anything heavy with nukes, we now brand Obama the betrayer of the Poles?

It was a dumb decision from the beginning. There was no good military rationale. We knew and so did the Russians, so big surprise, they didn't care to trade anything for it.

Seriously people, this is emotion speaking instead of strategic thinking.

Closer-in friends are oil producers and Israel. My preferred missile defense would be parked in the PG itself. You want your containment effort to be visible, signaling commitment where it matters.

And no, Poland and the CR don't matter on this one. Saudi Arabia and the GCC matter, as does Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, etc.

"Also, the thing was an implicit promise to the Poles and Czechs..."

Well, public opinion polling among Czechs and Poles shows that they never thought it was a good idea to begin with.

oh, you must mean russophobe Czech and Polish politicians...

The neocons would like to make the issue more about Russia than Iran, but the issue really is about Iran, and its deadly short to medium range missiles.

NATO can deal with Russia, which is canceling deployment of Iskander missiles near Poland. So the Russians did give up something in return. Russia needs to be handled more by the Europeans, with more coherent American support as manifest by the Obama administration.

I applaud Obama's rejection of George W Bush's pork barrel project for eastern Europe, and resistance to starting a cold war with modern day Russia. He is keeping the missile issue focused on Iran, and ensuring protection for Israel, the Kurds, Saudis, and other regional allies.

data below on Polish polling via Sullivan via Ben Smith via a Polish friend. Dr. Barnett, did you pick up any Polish during your grad school days?

http://tinyurl.com/kj6gf3

"Now we'll get proven technology faster and more appropriately and flexibly placed. "

As opposed to what the defense industry wanted, what they call the public option.

If Iran would pop off a missile, nuclear or otherwise where would be the likely target? Poland? Somewhere else in Eastern Europe? Russia? No, the likely number one and two targets would be Tel Aviv and the Green District in the heart of Baghdad. Presuming all that, this makes sense. The timing was awful however, a slap in the face of Poland for sure.

Check out the Sept 17 "special report" from debkafile http://debka.com/.

Maybe Obama got something for it after all, as per the article.
1. Medvedev's comments that Russia would not rule out further sanctions on Iran, although as Tom has said, this is likely only going to slow down an inevitable process.
2. Putting part of the missile defense system on Israeli soil, which is already active, does speed up the overall deployment a bit, and it could go some ways in averting an Israeli strike on Iran, something that would be in American, Russian.... and Israeli interests.
3. Part of the system would be in a Russian site in Azerbaijan. The Russians clearly have to be playing ball in this respect.
4. And hey... maybe it is an overall better system.

Sang in Polish, but never learned any beyond that.

Got a Polish sister-in-law.

Seriously Tom, many thanks. Particularly in your response to some of the rote "in-the-weeds griping" being offered as strategy. I've received some mild drubbings when I offered many of the points you are offering. The concern for "saving face" as I've called it -- all that abstract hand-shaking, sabre-rattling, "assurance" given to the Poles etc. -- is so 4GW, fourth-generation, in which these abstractions became the major method of offense and defense following the advent of MAD and the Cold War,when more substantial and concrete moves became extremely counter-productive. But we are moving beyond 4GW; i.e., all the direct ideological and moral arguments and efforts are fading in the face of real concrete requirements for realignment.

"... this is emotion speaking instead of strategic thinking."

No. The decision was the correct one, as I said. Taking it out was the right thing to do.

The handling of it could have been better.

Can't really say it is wrong to consider the emotional impact.

Politics is sometimes about emotion.

Obama's team sometimes seems lead-footed even when they get things right on substance. This is another example.

Also, on this one, I still think he should have traded it for something. He may have some backroom deal going on it that is not well known.

So, it doesn't work, isn't popular in the countries we pushed it into, annoys countries whose help we want and is really expensive. Let's not stop doing it until someone gives us something in return, because to act in our own self interest just doesn't make sense.

Any time is the right time to stop doing expensive things that hurt your cause.

1. it doesn't work -- correct

2. isn't popular in the countries we pushed it into -- I have seen that asserted here. I am seeing contrary signals on this.

3. annoys countries whose help we want -- mixed, from what I can see. We want countries who we agree to protect to think we will do what we say, so they don't resort to self-help, as I originally said. Also, any negotiating partner responds to both carrots and sticks. To Russia, this was a stick. Putting it aside in exchange for nothing was unwise.

4. and is really expensive. -- correct.

Again, same conclusion. Get rid of it. Also same conclusion: reassure weak allies and get something in exchange, both of which Obama failed to do.

Re timing: I believe that this was initially leaked to the WSJ, and the initial reports seemed to suggest that the Obama administration planned to make an official announcement the following week. Once the story was leaked, however, Obama and Gates apparently decided they had to move up the official announcement in order to forestall ongoing Republican criticism of the policy, and also to mend fences with the Czechs and the Poles, who weren't happy to be reading about this for the first time in the WSJ. As in the case of the leak of the McChrystal report, I sense that the Obama administration has some problems with leakers in the Pentagon.