White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield

[Richard]

A political and economic 'hot potato' to be sure - but the reasoning makes sense for a myriad of issues and - after reviewing some of the technology mentioned - I don't see much wrong with it...except, of course, the perception of the US weakening and sliding into another faux isolationist phase.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[Red Flag 1]

Originally Posted by Richard

A political and economic 'hot potato' to be sure - but the reasoning makes sense for a myriad of issues and - after reviewing some of the technology mentioned - I don't see much wrong with it...except, of course, the perception of the US weakening and sliding into another faux isolationist phase.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

I have to wonder if Obama is getting too much credit for having "thought this through"?

Given the history of this administration's overreaching itself, and lack of depth, IMHO, I expect a simpler reason.

On his last visit to the former USSR, Zero sat quietly through a lecture from Putin. He revisits the region in about two weeks, if I recall correctly. Methinks Zero is just looking for a pat on the head from Putin for having rolled over for him; on second thought perhaps a scratch of the tummy.

My $.02.

RF 1

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Red Flag 1

I have to wonder if Obama is getting too much credit for having "thought this through"?

Given the history of this administration's overreaching itself, and lack of depth, IMHO, I expect a simpler reason.

The questions of what classes he took as an undergraduate and the marks he received remain more than a matter of intellectual curiosity.

IIRC, the president was in college between 1979 and 1983 and majored in political science with an emphasis on international relations. Access to his academic transcripts would lead to copies of course syllabi which would reveal his exposure to the historiography of the Cold War and (perhaps) allow us to understand that exposure within the context of contemporaneous debates over the ongoing American-Soviet rivalry.

My guess is that the future president was influenced by so-called revisionist interpretations of the Cold War. This interpretative approach argued that the U.S. provoked the Soviet Union towards a defensive posture towards the West and was therefore responsible for causing the Cold War. (This line of reasoning considered Stalin a person open to reasoned dialog and condemned millions of Eastern Europeans--including Poles--to live as slaves under the heel of Communism.) The future president may have also taken to heart contemporaneous arguments that personal diplomacy was a better way to conduct international relations under the shadow of nuclear annihilation, and that opportunities for disarmament should be seized.

From a chronological perspective, unless the future president was immensely curious intellectual as an undergraduate (a trait of which I see no evidence) he probably did not have the opportunity to observe the incubation of what one scholar has clumsily labeled 'the post revisionist synthesis' of Cold War historiography.*

____________________________________
* John Lewis Gaddis, “The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War” Diplomatic History 7:3 (Summer 1983): 171-190. Gaddis wrote a number of works during the 1970s and early 1980s that presaged this important article.

[incarcerated]

The Trial Balloons are up. (Marine Gen. James Cartwright is the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/op...0gates.html?em

A Better Missile Defense for a Safer Europe

Op-Ed Contributor
By ROBERT M. GATES
Published: September 19, 2009
Washington

....Moreover, a fixed radar site like the one previously envisioned for the Czech Republic would be far less adaptable than the airborne, space- and ground-based sensors we now plan to use. These systems provide much more accurate data, offer more early warning and tracking options, and have stronger networking capacity — a key factor in any system that relies on partner countries. This system can also better use radars that are already operating across the globe, like updated cold war-era installations, our newer arrays based on high-powered X-band radar, allied systems and possibly even Russian radars....

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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009...ght-look-like/

What a Revamped U.S. Missile Shield Might Look Like

By Nathan Hodge
September 18, 2009
....Intriguingly, the new plan might include deploying an X-band radar to the Caucasus — the region sandwiched between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea — to keep an eye out for missile launches from Iran. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright said stationing a radar in the Caucasus might reassure Russia, which was vehemently opposed to the Bush administration’s plan to place assets in Eastern Europe....

....The idea of stationing an X-band radar in the Caucasus, however, is not new. Back in 2006, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) published a fact sheet that said mobile sensors for ballistic missile defense might be placed in an unnamed country in the Caucasus. The agency subsequently scrubbed the fact sheet to remove any mention of possible locales, although MDA spokesman Rick Lehner told me at the time that the region would be a “good location for a small X-band radar to provide tracking and discrimination of missiles launched from Iran.”

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http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/0...fense_091809w/

Move comes as Obama cancels land-based plans

By Philip Ewing and William H. McMichael - Staff writers
Posted : Sunday Sep 20, 2009 12:39:43 EDT
....A second phase of the U.S. missile-defense regime will be in place by 2015, Cartwright said, and will include land-based sensors and SM-3s, but it was not clear whether that would mean an end to the standing Aegis BMD presence in Europe.

Worldwide, the system eventually will integrate the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missile, or THAAD, slated for operational deployment to Europe this year, and the Ground-Based Interceptor missile based at Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Cartwright said.

It also would include construction of a directional X-band radar somewhere in Europe, most likely in the Caucasus region, Cartwright said.

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Background from June:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/...anovosti01.htm

South Russia missile radar to be fully operational in October

RIA Novosti
17:40 06/08/2009
BALASHIKHA (Moscow Region), August, 6 (RIA Novosti) - A radar station in the southern Russian town of Armavir will become fully operational in October-November as part of the country's missile warning system, a military official said on Thursday.

....Russia has offered the U.S. use of radar stations at Armavir and Gabala in Azerbaijan as alternatives to a planned U.S. missile shield deployment in Central Europe, which Moscow has fiercely opposed as a security threat.

Washington has since shown little interest in the Russian proposal, but with the arrival of a new administration, led by President Barack Obama, has frozen its plans to open a missile interceptor base in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.

During his visit to Moscow in July, Obama pledged to consider Russia's concerns and review the U.S.'s European shield plans.