Washington’s plan to deploy a European segment of its missile defense system is a most sensitive issue and a major pet peeve of Russia-U.S. relations. Many observers agree that the ability of the sides to find a compromise solution to this problem would be indicative of the prospects for bilateral ties in the years to come.

PASSIONS OVER THE THIRD POSITION AREA

The planned third position area of a U.S. global missile defense system would include silos with interceptor missiles in Poland (the Ustka military range near the town of Slupsk in Pomeranian Voivodeship) and a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic (the Brdy military area near Jince, 60 km south-west of Prague). The first and second position areas of the ground-based echelon of the U.S. strategic missile defense system are deployed on the territory of the United States – in Fort Greely, Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, respectively.

The decision made by Washington in late 2005 to deploy a third position area near Russia’s western border was taken by Moscow as a threat to its national security. (For more on this subject, see “Missile Defense Challenges” by Pavel Zolotarev in Russia in Global Affairs, No. 3, July-September 2008.) To allay Moscow’s fears, the George W. Bush administration made several attempts between 2006 and 2008 to convince the Russian leadership that the third position area was not directed against Russia.

However, Russian and even some U.S. experts found Washington’s arguments untenable. The U.S. experts included Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; George Lewis of Cornell University; Richard Garwin, holder of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s award; Philip Coyle, former deputy director of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; David Wright of the Union Concerned Scientists NGO; and others.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in his annual address to the Federal Assembly on November 5, 2008, said that Russia would take measures to “effectively counter” the U.S. plans to deploy elements of its missile defense system in Eastern Europe. The Russian leader proposed refraining from plans to decommission a missile division deployed in Kozelsk, near Kaluga, and deploying Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad Region, “if necessary.” Also, the president said measures would be taken for electronic jamming of the new installations of the U.S. missile defense system.

Medvedev’s statement enhanced the concerns of Old Europe about the deployment of the third position area. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who held the rotating EU presidency then, warned against pushing for the implementation of the missile plans and proposed discussing the problem at a summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi supported the French president.

Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential non-governmental organization, on November 15, 2008 in Washington, Medvedev emphasized that Moscow would “take no action unless America takes the first step.” In his view, the missile defense problem could be solved either by establishing cooperation between Moscow and Washington in building a truly global missile defense system, or if the U.S. took into consideration Russia’s present concerns.

This statement was followed shortly by reactions from the political leaders of the Czech Republic and Poland. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said Russian inspectors might be allowed to visit the U.S. missile defense radar in the Czech Republic, while Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said his country was ready to agree to the presence of Russian observers, although not permanent presence, at the planned U.S. missile defense base in Poland. This would be a factor of confidence in the difficult negotiations with Russia on the missile shield, he added.

Meanwhile, access for Russian observers to the U.S. missile defense facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland was discussed way back in April 2008 at a meeting between Vladimir Putin and George Bush in Sochi. However, both Prague and Warsaw categorically rejected such a possibility. Later, they changed their position – probably due to Moscow’s declared plans to counter the U.S. missile defense system in Europe with Iskander missiles, and due to the position taken by the leaders of France and Italy with regard to the U.S. missile plans.

The positive changes in the settlement efforts were torpedoed by decisions made at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council on December 2-3, 2008 in Brussels. The meeting’s final communiqué declared plans to build a “NATO-wide missile defense architecture” that would include the European-based U.S. missile defense assets. The communiqué makes no provision for Russia’s participation in working out a concept for this Europe-wide integrated missile defense system and, consequently, in identifying its targets (i.e. against what missile threats it would be targeted). So, a hypothetical European missile defense system, including the third position area of the U.S. missile defense system, would have a capability targeted against Russia. NATO’s readiness to “explore the potential for linking United States, NATO and Russian missile defense systems at an appropriate time” does not change much for Moscow.

NATO’s decisions were largely determined by the goals of the previous U.S. administration. By concluding bilateral agreements with the Czech Republic and Poland for the deployment of the third position area without consultations with other NATO partners, Washington sought to bury the idea of building a European-Russian missile defense system, which was acquiring real shape then. After a series of joint computer-assisted command post exercises, which involved, among others, Russia, the United States and Canada, the parties agreed their approaches not only to a Europe-wide missile defense architecture but also to the compatibility of their missile defense assets and command information systems. Now, Russia has been actually excluded from the European missile defense configuration.

An analysis of various options for building a European missile defense system is planned to be prepared for a meeting of NATO defense ministers, scheduled for February 2008 in Kraków (Poland), and a respective report will be submitted to a NATO summit meeting, to be held in April. With regard to Russia, NATO has only confined itself to vague and unbinding words about the need for continued cooperation between the two parties in missile defense.

A CHANCE FOR A COMPROMISE?

It would be naive to expect Barack Obama to radically change his predecessor’s policy concerning the deployment of a global missile defense system. Yet, he may introduce some adjustments to it. The economic recession, total cash shortages, and the need to cut defense spending may cause Obama to postpone the deployment of the third position area – especially as there is an objective reason for that: the two-stage version of the existing three-stage Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), planned to be deployed at the Ustka military range in Poland, now exists only on paper. The Washington-based Center for American Progress said in its report, published in December 2008, that the United States “should not deploy a missile defense system that has not been proven to work properly.” Interestingly, the CAP is headed by John Podesta, who was co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

One of the two ways proposed by Medvedev for solving the missile defense problem – namely, the establishment of Russian-U.S. cooperation in building a truly global missile defense system – is hardly practicable in the foreseeable future. There are no required prerequisites for this, while the negotiability of Russia’s 2007 proposals for the joint use of early warning radars in Gabala (Azerbaijan) and Armavir (Russia’s Krasnodar Region) has already been exhausted. The consultations on missile defense and strategic offensive armaments, held by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and U.S. Acting Under Secretary of State John Rood on December 5, 2008 in Moscow, confirmed this conclusion.

At the same time, the second of Medvedev’s options – namely, that the U.S. should take into account Russia’s concerns – can be translated into life if both parties display balanced approaches and readiness for reasonable compromises.

If Washington is sincere in stating that the deployment of the third position area is aimed at intercepting only those long-range ballistic missiles that can be launched from the territory of Iran or other Middle East countries, then an acceptable solution can be found, which would consist of two mutually complementary elements.

The first element is Washington’s return to control and verification measures as regards the third position area facilities and the limitation of their combat capabilities. The measures, proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates at “two-plus-two” meetings in October 2007 in Moscow, provided, among others, for restricting the radar’s angle of view and not activating any missile-defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic until a real missile threat emerged. Unfortunately, the U.S. later actually waived many of its proposals.

At the same time, Moscow should not insist on a permanent presence for its observers at the U.S. missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland. The “almost permanent presence” for Russian observers, proposed by Radoslaw Sikorski, would be quite enough. It would ensure an acceptable compromise, as round-the-clock control by means of surveillance cameras would be supplemented with periodic, yet regular and unimpeded visits to the missile defense sites by Russian observers accredited to the Russian embassies in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The second element of the solution would be the assumption by the United States of international legal obligations with regard to the structure and composition of the third position area facilities: 10 silos with Ground Based Interceptors and not one more at the Ustka military range in Poland, and one radar and not one more at the Brdy military range in the Czech Republic.

For its part, Russia could assume a legal obligation to refrain from deploying Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad Region, provided the U.S. assumes obligations with regard to the third position area. This measure would allay concerns in some European countries, caused by Moscow’s plans to deploy Russian missiles near their borders.

Speaking of a global missile defense system in general, effective steps that could reduce tensions in Russian-U.S. relations include establishing a joint center for the exchange of data from early warning systems and notifications of missile launches. Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton made a decision to establish a Joint Data Exchange Center (JDEC) in Moscow back in 1998 and signed a respective memorandum on June 4, 2000. However, the center has never been put into operation due to red tape, although the parties already agreed on a site for the center, its structure, a list of required equipment, and functional duties of its personnel. In 2007, Putin proposed establishing two data exchange centers instead of one: one in Moscow and the other in Brussels. But this Russian initiative has not been followed up.

The JDEC could be the first step by Russia and the U.S. towards building an interlinked early warning system, the importance of which increases with the proliferation of ballistic missiles in the world. This system does not necessarily need to be joint, which is hardly practicable in the foreseeable future. It would be enough if the present Russian and U.S. early warning systems, which now operate autonomously from each other, were interlinked via the JDEC and would thus guarantee the prevention of unintentional nuclear war between the two countries. After all, no one can rule out an accidental launch of a ballistic missile or, which is much more dangerous, a provocation by third parties which may include non-state actors, such as terrorist and extremist organizations. In the future, this interlinked early warning system could be joined by other countries, in particular France and China, which are now building early warning systems of their own. Such developments would undoubtedly enhance strategic stability in the world.

The missile defense issue must be resolved as part of general efforts to normalize U.S.-Russian relations, which have seriously deteriorated after the Five-Day War in the Caucasus. All attempts to solve the missile defense problem will fail unless Moscow and Washington achieve mutual understanding, predictability of their actions, and, finally, mutual confidence with regard to each other’s intentions.