"Obama: Selling out other nations by removing missile defense"

You can probably find this misleading statement all over the Republican and other right-wing blogospheres: I see it recently came up again right here on PFF.

It's a reference to a decision of the Obama administration in 2009 to abandon a Bush-era plan for a missile defense system in Europe: Obama Shifts Focus of Missile Shield, Washington Post, September 18, 2009.

Like so many brief political talking points, it only refers to one part of a much larger story.

The Obama administration did not abandon the implementation of a European-based missile defense system: They abandoned the Bush-era plan for technical and strategic reasons in favor of an alternative missile defense architecture called the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), as reported recently in the New York Times:

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
A New Shield Over Europe
By IVO H. DAALDER
Published: June 6, 2012

BRUSSELS — Last month, NATO leaders held a successful summit in Chicago at which they charted the future course of the alliance in Afghanistan, bolstered NATO’s partnerships with nations across the globe and made a commitment to ensure that the alliance will have the capabilities to meet the security challenges of today and tomorrow.

The alliance made many critical decisions in Chicago; one of the most important was the declaration of an interim NATO ballistic missile-defense capability — the first concrete step to defending NATO European territory, its population and forces against the growing threat of ballistic missile attack. Today, NATO has the ability to defend parts of southern Europe against a limited attack, a capability that will gradually expand so that all of NATO Europe will be protected by the end of this decade.

The Chicago decision represents a major achievement for the Obama administration, and for all 28 NATO allies. When President Obama entered office more than three years ago, he inherited a [Bush-era] decision to deploy a missile-defense site in Europe — including an X-band radar and 10 ground-based interceptors — that aimed to defend the United States against an Iranian ICBM attack. The system was expected to be operational in approximately 2017.

Concerned that the threat of short- and medium-range missiles from the Middle East was growing rapidly and could easily overwhelm the limited defenses, the Obama administration looked for an alternative [to the Bush-era] missile-defense architecture that would be able to defend our allies and bases in Europe sooner and more effectively. In September 2009, the president announced a new concept — the European Phased Adaptive Approach, or EPAA — that would “provide stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and American allies.” The first phase of EPAA would become operational in 2011, thus countering the existing and growing threat much sooner, and the entire system would be based on technology that was proven and cost-effective. . . .

The Obama decision was described more briefly in Arms Control Now, in a column that appeared on May 10, 2012:

quote The Obama administration is building another interceptor system in Europe, known as the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA), to handle potential attacks from Iran. The system’s Phase IV, to be deployed in 2020, would seek to intercept long-range missiles that could reach the United States. Neither North Korea nor Iran has yet deployed long-range missiles that could reach the United States

The Obama decision was also summarized by the Congressional Research Service under the title Long-Range Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe (April 26,2010):

quote On September 17, 2009, the Obama Administration announced it would cancel the Bush- proposed European BMD program. Instead, Defense Secretary Gates announced U.S. plans to develop and deploy a regional BMD capability in Europe that could be surged on relatively short notice during crises or as the situation may demand. Gates argued this new capability in the near- term would be based on expanding existing BMD sensors and interceptors. Gates argued this new Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) would be more responsive and adaptable to the pace and direction of Iranian short- and medium-range ballistic missile proliferation. This capability would continue to evolve and expand over the next decade to include BMD capabilities against medium- and long-range Iranian ballistic missiles.

One of the problems with the Bush-era missile defense system that Obama inherited was that it has never tested very well:

quote In 2002, President Bush directed early deployment of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system in Alaska and California by the end of 2004, allowing just two years for deployment. Subsequent flight tests showed this interim deployment was hardly even a scarecrow. Of seven flight-intercept tests since November 2004, five failed.

That's from a column that appeared on July 26, 2012, under the title The Failures of Missile Defense in The National Interest.

The technical problems of the Bush-era system, known as Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), are given further discussion under the heading East Coast Missile Defense: Not Ready for Prime Time, in Arms Control Now (May 10, 2012).

Sean Kay, author and foreign policy fellow at the Eisenhower Institute, posted his views in the Huffington Post under the title Obama Is Getting Missile Defense Right in Europe (May 8, 2012):

... it is asserted that the Obama administration "abandoned America's allies in Europe" and made "concessions to Russia" in its reset of U.S.-Russian relations. Actually, the new concept for European ballistic missile defense is based on an alignment of threats and capabilities which increases the security of American allies most likely to be in range of hostile ballistic missiles. The Bush plan, which included interceptors and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic, left most of southern Europe uncovered -- a problem the Obama plan seeks to fix. Meanwhile, the Bush plan was accepted in Poland mainly to get U.S. support troops there, not out of excitement for missile defense. The Czech public overwhelmingly opposed the concept from the beginning. The Obama plan -- which focuses on Aegis cruisers at sea, and then deploys similar systems on land, provides a credible foundation for a new look at NATO collective defense -- relevant to all allies. Making NATO collective defense credible is hardly a "concession" to Russia.

Looking beyond Europe, the Wall Street Journal just reported under the heading U.S. Plans New Asia Missile Defenses (August 23, 2012):

quote The U.S. is planning a major expansion of missile defenses in Asia, a move American officials say is designed to contain threats from North Korea, but one that could also be used to counter China's military. The planned buildup is part of a defensive array that could cover large swaths of Asia, with a new radar in southern Japan and possibly another in Southeast Asia tied to missile-defense ships and land-based interceptors. It is part of the Obama administration's new defense strategy to shift resources to an Asian-Pacific region critical to the U.S. economy after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The expansion comes at a time when the U.S. and its allies in the region voice growing alarm about a North Korean missile threat. They are also increasingly worried about China's aggressive stance in disputed waters such the South China Sea, where Asian rivals are vying for control of oil and mineral rights.

Concerning Israel:

quote US President Barack Obama on Friday signed a piece of legislation that gives Israel 70 million dollars for its "Iron Dome" rocket defense system, one day before his Republican rival in the 2012 presidential election Mitt Romney is scheduled to visit that country. Obama signed the "United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012" to grant additional funding for Israel's production of the Iron Dome system for the year. The Iron Dome is a short-range rocket defense system, which has shot down rockets fired at Israel. "I have made it a top priority for my administration to deepen cooperation with Israel across the whole spectrum of security issues -- intelligence, military, technology," said Obama before signing the bill in the Oval Office. According to a White House fact sheet, Obama has, "despite tough fiscal times," fought for and secured full funding for Israel in the current fiscal year, including 3 billion dollars in Foreign Military Financing -- the largest amount of funding for Israel in US history. The fact sheet also said that Obama has secured an additional 205 million dollars in last fiscal year to help produce the Iron Dome, and intends to request additional funding for the Israeli system on top of the 70 million provided this year.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/723801.shtml


Do the Republicans have better ideas about missile defense?

Maybe.

I just wanted to show how ludicrous it is to try to reduce the issue to a single sound byte "Obama: Selling out other nations by removing missile defense", in a long litany of charges leveled at the Obama administration that range from highly discussable to demonstrably ludicrous--and everything in between.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 09-04-2012).]

As I recall, the problem wasn't so much the termination of the agreement but the way it was done. Poland had no advance notice of the decision and the announcement was made on the anniversary of a Russian invasion of Poland. It looked like a double face slap to a friend.

ROMNEY: Obama has failed to work with allies to deter aggression, including "the sudden abandonment of friends in Poland and the Czech Republic. They had courageously agreed to provide sites for our anti-missile systems, only to be told at the last hour that the agreement was off. As part of the so-called reset in policy, missile defenses were sacrificed as a unilateral concession to the Russian government."

THE FACTS: Romney is talking about Obama's decision, announced in September 2009, to replace a Bush administration plan for missile defense in Eastern Europe that would have placed 10 long-range interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic. The Obama administration says it made the changes to better address the emerging threat from Iran's missile program, not to appease Russia. While Russia initially welcomed the change as less threatening to its interests, Moscow has since ramped up its opposition.

A key part of the new system, a radar, will still be fielded in Poland. The administration also followed through with a related Bush administration deal with Warsaw to station a Patriot missile battery and a small number of U.S. troops in Poland near its border with Russia.

Romney's claim that the Czech government agreed to provide a site for the system ignores the fact that the plan faced serious domestic opposition [in the Czech Republic] and never won the necessary parliamentary approval. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served in both administrations, once said that the Bush plan "was not going to happen because the Czech Republic was not going to approve the radar."

The Free Press, Mankato, MN
July 25, 2012
FACT CHECK: Romney and Obama on defense spending
Associated Press

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-26-2012).]

Nukes Of Hazard offers a new critique of how candidate Romney and the 2012 RNC Platform are distorting the truth about the Obama administration's missile defense programs:

And then there's another one of my favorite misrepresentations: the charge that the Obama administration abandoned the missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic to appease Russia. This is among Romney's go-to criticisms of the administration's national security policy. The reality of course is that the Czech government was unwilling to approve the radar necessary for the 10 interceptors that were to be placed in Poland, the schedule for the planned deployment was moving to the right, the proposed interceptors had not even been built, much less tested, and the system would have left most of Europe unprotected from Iran's existing short and medium-range ballistic missiles. As Heather notes, the administration instead put together an alternate plan based on capabilities that actually exist and to initially combat threats that actually exist in an attempt to rectify these problems.

Like candidate Romney, the RNC also claims that the Obama administration has underfunded U.S. national missile defense programs. The reality is that the President continues to robustly fund this program (also known as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system). The administration’s budget request for missile defense programs this year is $9.7 billion, including approximately $900 million for the ground-based midcourse defense system. This is an enormous investment. By their own admission, adding additional millions to the budget would not allow military leaders to accelerate solving the technical problems that continue to plague national missile defense.

This article in Slate explores the realities associated with Obama's open-mic-gaffe, and why, regardless of which candidate wins the presidential election, the prospect for any U.S. national missile defense that would eliminate the threat from Russian or Chinese ICBMs is zero.

Debunking the Missile-Defense Myth (Yousaf Butt; National Interest; May 7, 2012) explains some of the technical considerations that limit the potential for effective long range missile defense.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-28-2012).]