Europe Worries as Russia and U.S. Argue Over Missiles
By THOM SHANKER and MARK LANDLER
Published: April 28, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 27 — When the United States first asked Poland and the Czech Republic to base missile defenses on their soil, the proposed interceptors and radar were cast as a prudent hedge against Iran and a guarantee that Europe’s security was indivisible from that of America, which was moving ahead with defenses for its own territory.
But with Russia’s rejection of a new American invitation to cooperate on missile defense — a rebuff delivered with an exclamation point when the Kremlin threatened Thursday to pull out of a treaty on conventional weapons in Europe — the initiative risked driving Moscow further from Europe and dividing Europe’s public over the future of its shared security.
The caustic exchanges between Washington and Moscow, which many Europeans fear will knock the lid off the ash bin of cold war history, were the latest example of how the United States and Russia say they want to work together but talk past each other.
The United States says the missile defenses are all about Iran, which American intelligence agencies have said is developing missiles capable of reaching Europe as well as trying to gain the means of producing nuclear weapons. Moscow says that they are all about Moscow, that any Iranian threat is years away and that the bases really would serve as a Trojan horse to neutralize the Kremlin’s strategic rocket forces.
The United States says that its invitation to share missile defense technology and operate radar sites together would allow Russia to enter a more mature partnership with the United States and NATO, and that all sides would win. Russia responds that its every act of post-cold war conciliation has only left it more tightly encircled by NATO.
Even before negotiations begin in earnest, both sides are staking out hard positions. The United States says Russia will have no veto over American missile defense bases in Central Europe. In response, Russia has said that the new offer has done nothing to alter its opposition, and that it is prepared to kick the legs out from under other arms control agreements to show its anger.
To be sure, this missile defense drama is only in its opening scene. The two missile defense sites, expected to cost about $3.5 billion, are still years away.
At some level, the debate over the missile defense system is not even about interceptors and radar installations. Their effectiveness is a matter of conjecture. It is about Russia’s perception of, and insecurity about, its role in West-facing Europe.
Thus, Washington and Moscow are playing to the populations of Poland and the Czech Republic, whose Parliaments would have to approve the bases, and beyond, to a broader and quite ambivalent European public.
If the United States hoped that the tough talk this week from Moscow would unify Europe to rally publicly behind its plans to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic, it is likely to be disappointed.
Behind closed doors, America’s European allies were indeed united in their negative reaction to the Russian threats during a meeting on Thursday in Oslo attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NATO foreign ministers and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, according to American and European officials who were present or were briefed on the session.
The Europeans took umbrage at the Russians’ belligerence, after a conciliatory mission to Moscow by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in which he offered to share missile defense technology with Russia.
“For the Russians to turn around and slap us, it did not go over well with European governments today. That’s for sure,” said a senior American official, who spoke on diplomatic ground rules of anonymity.
“There was virtual unanimity that Russia should work with the Americans and work with NATO on missile defense, as several delegations said, especially after the Americans have clearly gone out of their way to make constructive proposals to the Russians,” the American official said.
That version of events in Oslo, as presented by the senior American official, was confirmed by representatives of two European nations in attendance.
Yet speaking publicly on Friday, European officials remained wary about the missile defense proposal, as they had been for months.
“The core issue is to prevent a spiral of mistrust between Russia and the U.S.,” said the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “And this is what is in our immediate European interest.”
Other German politicians repeated qualms that an American missile defense system might upset the strategic balance in Europe or ignite a new arms race between Russia and the West.
Eckart von Klaeden, a foreign policy adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel and a supporter of Washington, predicted that the threat by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to pull out of the treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe would not make Europe fall in line behind the United States.
“On the one hand, Germans are becoming more skeptical about Russia, but on the other hand, people are still using anti-Americanism as a tool,” Mr. von Klaeden said. “All the constructive things that the Americans have done in the past year haven’t been welcomed here.”
For Germany, analysts say, the most immediate effect of the deepening rift is to undermine Mrs. Merkel’s efforts to forge closer economic and trade ties between the European Union and Russia. That had been a hallmark of her term as president of the European Union.
“Germany had prepared a very constructive new ‘Ostpolitik’ toward Russia,” said Alexander Rahr, an expert on Russia at the German Council on Foreign Relations, referring to a policy of incremental steps to bring both sides closer. “That is now being destroyed.”
Mr. Rahr said the rift would put Mrs. Merkel in an increasingly awkward position because, while she hopes to preserve Germany’s close ties to Russia, she does not want to antagonize the Bush administration.
“I don’t understand why Putin came out like he did,” Mr. Rahr said. “It was much too harsh; it was a strategic mistake.”
Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and Mark Landler from Oslo.
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Saturday, April 28th, 2007
Putin: Russia will counter U.S. missile shield
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