US Pulls Missile Defense from Europe

GOOD. Rob Farley calls it a victory for sane foreign policy.  From his blog:

Let's be clear; this is a huge victory for common sense over fantasy, and for responsible defense budgeting. This project had no function other than to serve the pecuniary interest of the missile defense industry, and to sate the ideological lust of conservatives infatuated with St. Reagan. No convincing strategic logic could ever be provided for the program; advocates careened wildly between arguments, desperately trying to see if they could make anything stick. Protecting Europe from Iranian missiles? Nobody in Europe was particularly concerned, or, outside of Poland and the Czech Republic, really wanted the defense. Protecting from the Russians? By the admission of advocates, the shield could not have served as a deterrent to Russian attacks. Necessary to demonstrate our commitment to the Poles? Meh; I'd rather get them something they could actually use.

Cheryl Rofer has a three-parter at her site (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). She notes that the Czechs never thought much of it.

Polls stated that two-thirds of the Czech population did not want the radar site. Many believed the Czech Republic would not only be an early target by Russia, but were concerned about issues such as attacks on the Czech soil by terrorists and extremists, relations declining between the Czech and Russia government, and others worried about radiation from the system. The mayors and most local politicians in the municipalities where the base would be located spoke out against the plan. Despite being promised 1.25 billion crowns for their localities to host the base by the Toplanek government, they have seen only 13.5 million crowns up to this point. 

Finally - we see the president making a good foreign policy decision - a change we can believe in. The neocons are crying, and the EMP crazies are sure to be venting their frustration. And that all means that this was a good decision.

Comments

[nor]

Next we should catch up to the science and retire our ICBM's and the air delivery nuc
platforms and adopt a MONAD. With increased
lethality and accuracy we can accomplish with
a conventional war hear what previously required a nuc. When this happens we will have moved full
circle back to counter value and reduced the risk of a counter force first strike.

[nor]

Warhead

[Ray]

This is primarily connected to better relations with Russia of course, and although there are BBC rumours about Russia being asked to become "more involved" with the Afghanistan war, we know that, for obvious reasons, that is beyond any possibility; and Russia is being somewhat smug about our apparent inability to settle this. They do point out however that the US is using Russian territory for logistical purposes into Afghanistan.
Today's BBC quotes NATO's General Secretary:"Mr Rasmussen, speaking in Brussels, urged the US, Nato and Russia to study a joint missile defence system." Russia also, tit-for-tat, states it will not know go ahead, with what were going to be, counter measures. It's still in the pot, then as to what the outcome of Mr Obama's offer will do.

[ry]

MONAD? Not familiar with the acronym. Would like guidance.

Since you need a counter-view:
I don't like the change. Being a guy who reads Barnett I'm familiar with the logic that torquing Rus for the sake of simply not liking them is a poor game. Better to let them have a sphere of influence and work hard to soften it via other channels(you know, the other letter of DIME that aren't M). And yet, letting the Russians have a sphere of influence should bother one somewhat. Evils that don't entirely die tend to come back all kinds of nasty.

I get it though, Jay. It makes sense in a way that doesn't resort to force as a primary mode(almost like someone read Liddel-Hart's 'Strategy' and decided that pitting force on force is a losing strategy. Who knew?)

Yet, there's something about it that comes off wrong.

Sure, bastardizing the SM series seems like a more workable solution, but then, doesn't that simply undo the political logic of removing the land based radar and missile systems?

There's problems with this. It's just to late for me to do them coherently(like when have I ever been coherent?).

[liberty, democracy fuck that way.]

my dear dumb people with big guns from america. why at the fucking hell are you not asking the people in EU do they want this "defense" or not in their countries?

you retards are talking about like if they are not rullers of own land and cant defend themselfes.

[J.]

Hi liberty, you must be confusing us with some neocon who cares. I'm quite in favor of letting Europe defend itself. Buh-bye.