Dismay in Europe as Obama Ditches Missile Defense
President Obama dismayed America’s allies in Europe and angered his political opponents at home today when he formally ditched plans to set up a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The project had been close to the heart of Mr Obama’s predecessor, President Bush, who had argued before leaving office in January that it was needed to defend against long-range ballistic missile attacks from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.
But it had hobbled relations with Russia, which considered it both a security threat and an unnecessary political provocation in its own backyard.
At a White House appearance today, Mr Obama confirmed that the defense shield envisaged by the Bush Administration, involving a radar base in the Czech Republic and interceptor rockets sited in Poland, was being abandoned.
Instead, after a comprehensive review, he had decided to accept the advice of both the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and of the Chiefs of Staff opt for a “smarter, stronger and swifter” system involving both sea-based and land-based mobile interceptors.
Mr Obama said that latest intelligence suggested that threat of long-range missile attacks from Iran had receded, but the threat of short- or medium-range attacks was a real one.
via Source.
Medvedev Threatens U.S. Over Missile Shield
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned the United States on Friday that if it did not reach agreement with Russia on plans for missile defence systems, Moscow would deploy rockets in an enclave near Poland.
In sharp contrast to his positive words during President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow earlier this week when the two reached broad agreement on nuclear arms cuts, Medvedev used a news conference at the G8 summit to return to Russia’s earlier tough rhetoric on arms control.
Referring to an order he gave earlier this year to prepare deployment of short-range Russian missiles in the western enclave of Kaliningrad to answer to any U.S. deployment of a missile shield in central Europe, Medvedev said:
“If we don’t manage to agree on the issues, you know the consequences. What I said during my state of the nation address has not been revoked.”
Medvedev, speaking at the G8, also appeared to change his tone on the missile defence shield itself.
During Obama’s visit he told the U.S. leader, using markedly softer language than normal, that “no one is saying that missile defence is harmful in itself or that it poses a threat to someone”.
