There is a scene in the BBC series “Cambridge Spies” in which during their defection to the Soviet Union one of the Cambridge spy ring – I forget which now – states that if he had to choose between betraying his friends or betraying his country, he would hope to always choose the latter. The scene came to mind when I heard that President Obama had decided to abandon the missile defence shield planned for construction in Poland and the Czech Republic; here was a man who had managed to betray both his friends and his country, again to the delight of Russia.
The decision is one that has been expected for a long time. In February it was known that the missile interceptors were on the table for abandonment, and during the US Presidential election this had been mentioned. By entering into appeasement politics and no doubt negotiations Obama has once again used the Czech Republic and particularly Poland as sacrifices in his game of Russian appeasement; pawns to their rooks. A cruel betrayal – for both the Czech Republic and Poland certainly acted courageously in agreeing to host the defences – made all the crueller and more inept by Obama’s timing: 70 years to the day that the Soviet Union invaded the latter as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany and begun its half century of hell.
But to characterise this as a betrayal of the Czech Republic and Poland would be to tell less than half the story. Obama’s actions have betrayed all of Europe – East and West – as well as the United States. Though ostensibly the missile shield was to protect against Iran – hence the ‘new evidence’ of Iranian focus on short/medium range missiles only* – it patently wasn’t. I know it was to protect against Russia, you know it was to protect against Russia, Obama knows it was to protect against Russia, the Russians know it was to protect against Russia, everyone knows it was to protect against Russia – that’s why it was to be located where it was and why Russia disliked it so much!
As Michael Boyle wrote in The Guardian, “The missile shield plan of the Bush administration held out the hope of absolute protection from attack against the US and its allies…which, if realised, would have called into question the strategic defence balance in Europe.” He strangely however seems to think tilting the balance in our favour, of free liberal democracy, and offering protection from destruction would be a bad thing. I certainly don’t!
The shield would have moved us from the deterrence of mutually assured destruction to the deterrence of singularly assured destruction. No longer a case of “dare to launch missiles at us and we’ll attack you back” but instead “dare to launch missiles at us and we’ll knock them out of the sky and then attack you back”. Not so much “don’t hit us with your big stick because we’ll hit you back with ours” but “we have a big stick, you don’t.” It’s a far better position to be in.
By abandoning the shield, Obama has left the West vulnerable to the frightening and infinite unexpected variables of the future. He recently gave a frankly rather creepy Headmaster type speech to students at schools all across America, “from kindergarten through twelfth grade”, on their responsibilities to learn. The President singled out the use of history and stated if you quit school you are “not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country”. But Obama has himself evidently failed to learn from history and by quitting on the shield and Eastern Europe he is also quitting on his true responsibility – his country’s defence.
President Obama promised during his rise that where America had antagonists he would make friends, however he failed to mention that in doing so he may make antagonists – or at least disinterested bystanders – where America once had good friends. And true good friends, loyal allies, are worth far more than the appeased antagonists that are his fair weather friends, they’re priceless.
*Which ignores Iran's successful launch of the Sejil missile in May (estimated range: 1,560 miles). The Sejil could deliver a one-ton payload as far as Warsaw. The International Atomic Energy Agency is now saying that Iran has "sufficient information" to build an atomic bomb and will also "overcome problems" involved in its delivery system.
