WASHINGTON — A senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (Ill.) today expressed support for Bush administration plans to build a missile defense system in Europe, despite Moscow’s protests that the deployments would threaten Russia (see GSN, Sept. 12).
“Serious conversation needs to be had with the Russians about what we’re trying to do, because it is not anti-Russian,” Richard Danzig, a member of Obama’s core defense and foreign policy team, told reporters during a breakfast question-and-answer session.
“I do not think Russia has a legitimate security concern here,” the former Clinton administration Navy secretary added. “Either in the number of missile interceptors that would be placed in Poland or in the radar systems in [the Czech Republic], or in the angle of approach and the basic geometries, this is not an anti-Russian move.”
Under the initiative, the United States has signed agreements to place 10 interceptors in Poland and an early warning radar in the Czech Republic (see related GSN story, today). U.S. officials have insisted the deployments are necessary to protect the United States and its European allies from a potential ballistic missile threat from Iran (see GSN, Dec. 14, 2007).
Obama has generally endorsed the notion of installing missile defenses in Europe but has indicated concern about technical and political issues.
“If we can responsibly deploy missile defenses that would protect us and our allies, we should — but only when the system works,” the senator said in a written statement issued in July 2007, during Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s visit to the United States.
“The Bush administration has in the past exaggerated missile defense capabilities and rushed deployments for political purposes,” Obama said. “[It] has also done a poor job of consulting its NATO allies about the deployment of a missile defense system that has major implications for all of them.”
Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (Ariz.) has strongly supported missile defenses to protect the United States and its allies, in addition to discussing a possibly rising threat from Moscow.
“Effective missile defenses are critical to protect America … from outlaw states like Iran that threaten American forces and American allies with ballistic missiles, and to hedge against potential threats from possible strategic competitors like Russia and China,” McCain’s campaign Web site states.
Some U.S. missile defense advocates have begun citing fears about Russian belligerence to help justify the European deployments, potentially complicating Washington’s negotiating position (see GSN, Sept. 4).
Today Danzig praised Defense Secretary Robert Gates for joining Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in engaging Russian leaders directly in an attempt to assuage their concerns.
In a Moscow meeting last October, the two U.S. Cabinet secretaries offered then-Russian President Vladimir Putin proposals for cooperating on joint defenses. They followed up with a second visit in March (see GSN, Oct. 22, 2007, and March 20). However, ongoing talks have yet to result in a breakthrough (see GSN, July 24).
Danzig noted that the Russian incursion into Georgia in August “knocked off track” the dialogue with Washington about missile defenses.
“But I think the presence of those agreements” with Warsaw and Prague “is in the United States interest and can be reconciled with Russian interests,” he said.