BMD is scuttled

After catching ton of grief over the past nine months for not moving far enough away from several of the former administration’s policies, President Barack Obama today announced a fairly large departure from the Bush years: the US is scuttling its effort to deploy ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

This is a pretty big deal, if only in terms of symbolism. The reason why is that the Russians loathed the idea of the US putting such high-level military assets inside of the former Warsaw Pact. Although Russia was not the ostensible target of the weapons system (that would be Iran), it mattered little to the Russians who the Pentagon’s stated adversary was. The decision to scuttle the BMD plans opens up the possibility of closer US-Russian cooperation elsewhere, namely against Iran.

But don’t hold your breath. There have been no reports of an agreement in principle, and the two countries many times have approached the dance floor only to move in opposite directions ultimately. Indeed, the justification given by the Obama administration for ending the BMD effort – that Iran was further away from deploying nuclear weapons than previously thought – argues against close US-Russian cooperation by trivializing the importance of Iran’s weapons program. Indeed, if Iran is behind schedule, so to speak, why pull the BMD card off the table – it’s one of the few points of leverage we have vis-à-vis the Russians. Why not let it remain a pending issue for a while longer?

The US president has taken body shots from every which direction over the past few months on an array of issues, some deserved, but more have been petty in nature. But this decision is unwise. Many observers of US foreign policy will want to see definitive progress in US-Russian relations in the aftermath of this decision. Lacking that, it’s hard to see why we would appease the Russians without gaining anything in return, especially when this decision will likely alienate the remaining US supporters in Poland and the Czech Republic. Ah, but what’s a little perfidy among allies?