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Will President-Elect Barack Obama be good for U.S. and Russian relations? President Dmitry Medvedev seems to think so.

Medvedev hopes to meet with Obama to discuss our country’s agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to install missile defense shields in those countries. The bases will provide a defense against attacks from rogue states like Iran, but Russia perceives the bases as a direct threat.

Earlier this month, the Russian president said his country would deploy missiles near Poland in retaliation. According to the Los Angeles Times, Medvedev said Russia has no plans to retaliate with missiles but “reserves the right to respond.” With Obama in office, Medvedev seems more willing to discuss the matter in lieu of a promise to cancel the planned bases.

Meanwhile, French president Nicolas Sarkozy was at one point favorable to the plans. After speaking to Medvedev last week, however, he said the systems would do ” nothing to bring security and complicates things.” Regardless, NATO still supports the U.S. in its endeavors in eastern Europe.

“The decision taken at Bucharest is very clear and we are continuing to analyse different options relating to missile defence,” NATO spokesperson Carmen Romero said.

Obama has not said whether he’ll move forward with either missile defense shield. We’ll keep you posted on the developments.

(Sources: Los Angeles Times and Reuters)

 
Missile Defense Agency director Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering said he’s looking forward to reporting to President-Elect Barack Obama on the effectiveness of the missile defense systems planned for Poland and the Czech Republic.

Obering said the missiles are “workable.”

“Our testing has shown not only can we hit a bullet with a bullet, we can hit a spot on a bullet with a bullet,” he said at a news conference. Obering warned that abandoning the project would impede America’s ability to protect allies in those regions.

Although Obama has not committed to installing the bases, he has stated he’d make sure the systems were functioning properly before going forward. Obering appears ready, willing, and able to address the new president’s concerns when he visits the Pentagon.

Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly said Russia would not install missiles near Poland if the U.S. cancels its plans to install missile defense systems. Neither Poland’s nor the Czech Republic’s parliaments have ratified the agreements.

(Source: AFP)

 
**In an op-ed in the Opinion Journal, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton writes about President-Elect Obama’s visit to Polish President Lech Kaczynski, which we briefly mentioned this week. Bolton noted that although Obama didn’t commit to the planned missile defense shield in Poland, Kaczynski is under the impression that the project will move forward. In fact, Obama was explicit about not committing.

“Mr. Obama contradicted a head of state, clinging to a campaign position that could most kindly be described as weak and ambiguous,” Bolton writes. “The statement also reflected a naiveté in the structuring of such transition conversations — and future dealings with truly unfriendly foreign leaders — that could have been avoided.”

**On Wednesday, India successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface missile called Shourya, which has a range of 375 miles. The missile was fired from Balasore in eastern Orissa state. The missile is designed to protect against attacks from Pakistan, India’s rival. The two countries engaged in battle three times since gaining independent from Great Britain in 1947. Since 1994, they’ve held peace talks. (AP)

**On that same day, Iran test-fired a new missile (successfully?), which has a range close to 1,200 miles. With that capacity, the missile can reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf region. The U.S. suspects Iran may be building atomic weapons, which Iran denies. Although our new president has been critical of the current president’s policy, he has not ruled out “military action” should the U.S. discover that Iran is covertly building a nuclear arsenal. (Reuters)

 
Since the U.S. agreed to install missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic so the region will be protected against attacks from rogue countries like Iran, Russia has threatened to retaliate by deploying short-range ballistic missiles on its western border around Kaliningrad and pointing them at the region. But critics say it’s just a bluff. (UPI)

According to RIA Novosti, an anonymous Russian Defense Ministry official said the Iskander system “will be put in service with five missile brigades, primarily near Russia’s western border and in the Kaliningrad region” by 2015, but Moscow News said Russia doesn’t have the resources to produce five battalions of missiles by the target date, and putting the missiles on the western border would place them out of range of Poland’s defense shield.

Between the Moscow News and RIA Novosti reports lies an accurate account. Both sources give different ranges for the missiles. UPI reports that even if Russia won’t have five Iskander-armed missile battalions by 2015, it will “likely to have enough of them there to do the job.”

Either way, the facts are troubling. We have no doubt the U.S. will continue trying to reach a compromise with Russia, or at the very least, quell its fears about possible attacks from the proposed bases.

 
On Saturday, Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, and Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, discussed our country’s missile defense plans in Europe.

Russia says it will deploy short-range ballistic missiles on its western border around Kaliningrad if the U.S. installs missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Despite Secretary Rice’s attempts to ease Russia’s concerns about the bases, the Kremlin has rejected the proposals, but may revisit them once President-Elect Barack Obama takes office, according to Reuters. This rejection comes even after the U.S. offered to allow Russia to inspect the bases.

Russia believes the bases are a threat but “is ready to cooperate with the United States on European security but considers the proposals that were sent are insufficient.”

So all it not lost, it appears.

During the campaign, Obama said he would make sure the missile defense systems worked before deployment, and Congress held off on funding the projects until both countries’ parliaments ratified the agreements.

If the Czech Republic doesn’t allow its planned base, Poland may not get its base. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said, “Without a radar in the Czech Republic, the base in Poland will be useless…So the date for starting work on the base is not determined by the speed of our negotiations or by our ratification. The Czech ratification is its necessary condition.” (AP)

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Obama met to discuss Poland’s missile defense shield. While Kaczynski believes the project will move forward, Obama has not committed to it. (AP)

 
In the event that Poland’s and the Czech Republic’s parliaments don’t ratify agreements signed by the U.S. and the two countries to build missile defense bases, the U.S. will consider alternate installation sites. Missile Defense Agency commander Lt. Gen. Henry Obering didn’t elaborate about specific locations.

Obering stressed the urgency of building the bases. “Most of the intelligence community believes that the Iranians are going to have a capability to threaten certainly all of Europe. In fact, that’s something they believe could happen shortly, within the year…And they can threaten the United States in the next five to six years.”

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek reportedly said parliament should delay a final decision until President-Elect Barack Obama takes office in January. Target dates for completion of the bases are between 2011 and 2013.

On a related note, the U.S. State Department’s top arms control official said the U.S. is attempting to quell Russia’s concerns about the Polish and Czech missile defense bases. Russia has been critical of these plans, perceiving hostility from the U.S.

John Rood, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said the U.S. has sent Russia an offer to allow Russian monitors access to the bases to confirm that installations will not be aimed at Russia.

Hood said he was disappointed by Russia’s threats at retaliation, but the U.S. will not “disengage or something of that nature…Rather, to the contrary, we think it’s just as important as ever to talk to the Russians about their concerns. We don’t think that there’s a legitimate basis to view what we’ve done, our plans, in Poland the Czech Republic as a threat to Russia.”

Will allowing inspections satisfy Russia? Probably not.

(Sources: NTI and State Department)

**The U.S. Air Force announced that an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was successfully test-fired earlier this week. Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, the ICBM hit its target over the Pacific Ocean near the Marshall Islands.

Lt. Col. Lesa Toler, 576th Flight Test Squadron commander and the mission director, said, “The fact that we can randomly select an on-alert operational ICBM from any missile wing and launch it without making any modifications to the components to hit a bulls-eye target is a testament to the system’s reliability.” (AP)

**The U.S. Navy has announced the successful interception of a ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean, the first Third Fleet operation firing to use the Standard Missile-3 against a ballistic target.

Vice Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, Commander, U.S. Third Fleet, called the engagement “extraordinary” and that it “highlights the successful transition from developmental test flights to operational fleet execution and demonstrates the viability of the Maritime BMD Concept of Operations.” (SPX)

**Sources report that Bahrain is conducting a missile defense exercise with the U.S. According to Bahrain’s official news agency, the exercise is a joint effort with the U.S. Central Command to “boost military cooperation.” The Persian Gulf country has a cooperative agreement with our country’s military. (AFP)

**Earlier this week, a Japanese newspaper reported that the government was “moving towards” launching an early warning missile defense satellite. The newspaper said it received a draft of the ballistic missile defense plan, which contains information about deploying an early warning satellite that would monitor and warn against offensive missile launches. (UPI)

 
President-Elect Barack Obama will have to hit the ground running in January. Russia is moving full steam ahead on its plan to put short-range ballistic missiles on its western border around Kaliningrad if the U.S. installs missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.

President Dmitri A. Medvedev blamed Russia’s economic troubles on the U.S. and described what his country would do should the U.S. build bases in Europe. Russia would deploy mobile Iskander missiles to neutralize what it perceives as a threat.

“The Russians know full well that our European missile defense system is not capable of defeating their enormous ballistic missile arsenal,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained. “Rather, it is meant to counter Iran’s growing missile threat. And we have bent over backwards to invite the Russians to partner with us to defeat this common threat.”

The missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic will not be aimed at Russia, but Russia obviously isn’t buying the “just a defense” defense. In the meantime, NATO is concerned about the developments. Spokesman Robert Pszczel told the AFP that if true, “it would raise serious worries concerning the conformity with existing arms control arrangements which are important for European security…Moreover, placing of these Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region would not help NATO and Russia to improve their relationship.”

After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and tensions eased between the East and West, there was hope that animosity between the two would become a distant memory. Unfortunately, a second Cold War has begun.

(Sources: New York Times and AFP)

 
According to South Korea, North Korea is building a missile launch site capable of firing advanced rockets. South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told his country’s parliament that North Korea began building the site about eight years ago, and the site is 80 percent complete.

North Korea has about 200 Nodong missiles with a range of 800 miles, capable of reaching Japan. The country also has 600 Scud-type missiles that may be capable of reaching South Korea. Last month, a South Korean newspaper reported that North Korea was updating a missile launch site located on the coast of North Hamkyong to possibly test-launch a Taepodong-2.

Last month, the U.S. removed North Korea from a state terrorist sponsors list in return for allowing inspections of areas suspected of nuclear activity. As part of the deal, North Korea will disable a source of weapons-grade plutonium, the Yongbyon reactor.

(Source: AP - Photo source: Reuters)

 
This weekend the U.S. Navy announced that it shot down one of two short-range ballistic missiles test-fired from a navy ship, the first time the Navy supervised a Standard Missile-3 interceptor fired against a ballistic missile target.

***

Last week, the Czech Republic’s parliament began debating the deal reached between the U.S. and the Czech Republic to install a radar missile defense base to protect against missile attacks. The agreement is supported by the center-right coalition government, but parties that oppose parliament and Czech citizens are concerned about Russia’s disapproval of the plan.

One opposition party, the Social Democratic Party, has asked the Constitutional Court to review the agreements for legality. Signed last summer by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, the deal must be ratified by both houses of parliament. A majority of Czech citizens oppose the missile defense deal, according to polls.

The U.S. is attempting to protect Central Europe from countries like Iran. The U.S. plans to build a missile defense base in Poland, which also has to ratify the agreement. As expected, Russia opposes both bases.

(Sources: AP and RIA Novosti)