Antimissiles: Why Europe Resists
    By Vincent Jauvert
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Edition of Thursday 15 March 2007

Bush relaunches Star Wars. In spite of Russia's warnings, the United States wants to install bases for its antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. What is its real motive? That's the question that divides Central European public opinion and strategists.

    He's the Pentagon's bete noire in Poland. Roman Kuzniar is no militant pacifist, but a well-known geo-strategist. A month ago, he still directed Warsaw's diplomatic academy. What happened? "At the end of January, I wrote a classified memo to my country's main officials," this understated man with graying temples recounts. "Therein, I explained why, in my opinion, it was altogether contrary to our national interest to participate in the American antimissile shield as the Bush administration asks us to do. So, they showed me the door." Why this opposition to the American plan? "Because it's a bad response to a problem that doesn't exist," explains Roman Kuzniar. "In spite of what Washington maintains, the so-called "rogue" states, Iran and North Korea, have neither the ability nor the intention of attacking Europe or America with long-range ballistic missiles. Consequently, this purported shield is not defensive, as the Pentagon claims. In reality, it is offensive. Deployed, it would allow the United States to conduct a military operation against any country it would choose as an enemy with impunity. They much be prevented from doing that."

    A fundamental debate for the future of the Old Continent has just been embarked upon in Central Europe. The Czech Republic and Poland must decide soon whether they will agree or not to collaborate with the American missile shield plan. It's a strategic and military controversy that extends well beyond the borders of those two countries.

    At the end of January, Washington officially asked Prague and Warsaw to participate in the Pharaonic project Reagan launched in the 1980s that was subsequently put on the back burner by George Bush senior, and which junior, after modifying it, intends to bring to fruition. The enounced objective: to protect America from an attack by one or "several" intercontinental missiles launched by a "rogue state."

    In order to bring this system to completion, the Pentagon would like to deploy ten missile-interceptor missiles in Poland and a gigantic radar apparatus in the Czech Republic. These installations would come on top of those that are already operational (or being modernized) in California, Alaska, Great Britain and Greenland. The two sites, Washington assures, would also serve to defend the greater part of Europe.

    According to the polls, the Czech and Polish people, who fear being targeted by America's enemies, don't want the installations. But more surprising: the Polish, and especially the Czech elites, although the most pro-American on the continent, are beginning to have doubts. They wonder about the true aims of the Bush administration and about the necessity of linking their countries to the strategy of a discredited America to thi' extent. This extends to the point that ratification of a possible agreement by the Czech and Polish parliaments - scheduled for the end of 2007 - is not a foregone conclusion as the White House thought, having chosen these two countries precisely for their presumed docility.

    Of course, nothing is yet lost for Washington. The Bush administration still has its fervent zealots in both countries. Take the most virulent, and perhaps the most brilliant: the Czech Vice Prime Minister, Alexandr Vondra. This big man, chunky and grinning at age 46, is a former dissident, a signatory to Charter 77 along with Václav Havel. After the fall of communism, he was on the front line of all pro-American fights. He led the negotiations for the Czech Republic's entry into NATO, then he was ambassador to Washington. In his ministerial office on the banks of the Vltava, he justifies his unqualified support for Czech participation in the antimissile shield. "Even if that bothers you, I am a fierce Atlanticist," "Sasha" Vondra asserts with a great laugh. "Why? Because here, we haven't forgotten the evil Munich accords and Europe's betrayal. Consequently, we need America to protect us. And then, Europe is weak. It can't defend itself by itself. So, if we reject Washington's request, the United States could conclude that its soldiers based on the continent, in Germany, in Italy, and elsewhere, will be threatened. And they might withdraw their troops. Which would be a catastrophe." Another important Czech official who wants to remain anonymous offered a second reason: "We're a little country stuck between Russia and Germany. Thanks to a privileged agreement with America, we shall finally exist, be respected in Europe."

    So then, it's history and geography that explain Czech leaders' support for the shield, and not the alleged Iranian threat, which no one in Central Europe believes in. Let's listen to the Polish Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Witold Waszczykowski, who was ambassador to Tehran for four years: "Does this shield serve any purpose? I have no idea. In fact, I think that nuclear deterrence would be enough with Iran. But the Americans, they want their shield. And we want the Americans on our soil. Their presence will protect us." From whom? The Iranians? No, the Russians, obviously. "The Americans will want to defend their base. So, consequently, it's a kind of insurance that they would come and help us if Russia attacked." And NATO? "We don't believe in it so much," says this fifty-year-old diplomat. "Since we joined in 1999, the Atlantic alliance has never organized a simulation of a Russian attack against us. Why? Because they're afraid the Kremlin would discover the existence of such plans and get upset about them. Yet, half our country is within range of Russian missiles. So, you understand, we feel we're second class Europeans. That's why we need American soldiers here as a security guarantee."

    But, in Warsaw as in Prague, this absolute naive faith in big brother America is wearing thin. Even among the most ardent defenders of the transatlantic connection. Even with Radoslaw Sikorski, Polish Defense minister just a month ago, a forty-something intimate of team Bush. He worked for several years in Washington in the most influential of the neoconservative think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute. Yet, today, he says: "Five years ago, we could have signed with our eyes closed because we had complete confidence in the United States. But there was the war in Iraq. We sent troops there, but we never got what we expected in return, and then, it wasn't really a success.... So then we decided that America was a foreign country with which we had to negotiate. Because we would be shouldering the greatest risks. If six interceptors are installed in Pomerania, the Kremlin will probably do what it says it will: move missiles to our border to threaten Warsaw. In exchange for our support, consequently, the Americans will have to propose measures that increase our security, like those they offered Japan: a bilateral alliance and PAC-3 antimissile batteries. Thus, the result of the conversations presently underway is far from being obvious: this time, our parliament could very well say no."

    And then there are the determined opponents of the project. The first chronologically was a 30 year-old Czech doctor of cybernetics: Jan Tamás. In July 2006, when the deal seemed done, he created a "no to the bases" committee, which today includes about fifty organizations. He launched a petition, awakened opinion and made Washington - which had envisioned installing the two sites (the radar and the interceptors' silo) in the Czech Republic - backpedal.

    Wearing an orange bomber jacket and earrings, Jan Tamás explains: "I am hostile even to American radar for four reasons: 1) I don't believe in the so-called threats from 'rogue states.' That is too reminiscent of the Iraq weapons of mass destruction swindle. 2) America should disarm and remove the 480 nuclear warheads it has installed in Europe. And not arm itself further. 3) Participating in the George Bush project will increase the risks of terrorism here in Prague. We could have attacks like those in London or Madrid. 4) We don't know the ecological or health consequences of the radar they want to install. Why did they put the other ones in uninhabited regions of Alaska and Greenland? For all these reasons, our movement is growing. We are going to organize demonstrations all over the country."

    Today, Jan Tamás has a weighty ally: the former president of the Czech Parliament, Lubomír Zaorálek. This philosophy professor become one of the Social Democratic Party's key figures is convinced that the American plan is dangerous. In his office, this ordinarily placid man brandishes an April 2006 article from the American magazine "Foreign Affairs," entitled, "Towards American Nuclear Supremacy." He shouts, "Look what they want to do with their shield; it's written there: conduct preventative wars without reprisals! And then they say that all that is to counter Iran! Balderdash! It's China they're thinking of. Beijing has very few long-range missiles and the Americans want to neutralize them with their shield. With what object? To dominate Beijing, even to be able one day, should they deem it necessary, to strike China without risk. But do you believe Beijing is going to sit there and watch them do it? No, of course not, the Chinese will do everything to catch up. And then the Russians, also afraid of being outrun, will increase their military budget. You think that with all that the world will be more secure, as the White House claims? On the contrary, it will be totally destabilized. We should not be participating in that."

    And the security guarantee Washington could offer the little Czech Republic in exchange for the radar? "We're not going to harp on the tragic episodes of 1938 and 1968 for centuries!" Lubomír Zaorálek maintains. "To sign with Washington would be a rancorous gesture, not a strategic act. Our security rests on Europe and NATO. If we say yes to the Americans, that would be the end of European Union defense policy and even the Atlantic Alliance!"

    So the controversy will be decided within a year by the parliaments of the two countries, which would have to ratify the agreement with Washington. If they had to vote today, the MPs would undoubtedly reject this ratification - at least in the Czech Republic. But opponents fear last-minute skullduggery. Green Deputy and President of the Czech Assembly's Commission on European Affairs Ondrej Liska recounts: "It can happen that on D-Day, some deputies do not follow their group's instructions and then one later discovers that they've received sumptuous gifts in exchange."

    There could be a way to avoid having to choose between the United States and Europe: NATO could adopt the American project. "That's the condition we're putting on our ratification," says Ondrej Liska. "But, let's be realistic, the chances that the Atlantic Alliance will take that step are very slim. You French will refuse to pay. And the Pentagon would want control of the system, which the others won't accept."

    So, Ondrej Liska hopes that salvation will come ... from Washington. "There, the Democrats have told me they're not certain they'll vote the budget for European antimissile shield sites. And now that they are the Congressional majority, this whole affair may finally fizzle out, or the decision will be deferred until later." When George Bush will have finally left power.