Word: poland
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Plenty of political concerns have been raised over President Barack Obama's decision to scrap plans to deploy a missile-intercept system in Poland and the Czech Republic. "It's better these days to be a U.S. adversary than its friend," lamented the Wall Street Journal in a Friday, Sept. 18, editorial, implying that the U.S. caved in to Russia in abandoning the missile system. But just because Russia had furiously opposed the missile shield on its doorstep doesn't necessarily mean building it would have been a good idea. The military rationale for Obama's move is hard...
President Obama's decision to shelve plans to station U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic is being portrayed as a pragmatic response to the threat of Iranian nuclear missiles. In confirming the move on Thursday, Sept. 16, Obama said the U.S. wants to focus instead on deploying "technologies that are proven and cost-effective and that counter the current threat" - that is, Iran's medium-range missiles, rather than any intercontinental ballistic missiles Iran could possibly develop. (Read "Europe's Missile Shield: NIE Casualty...
...plan was changed because of revised intelligence estimates of Iran's missile capability - since Moscow had never taken seriously the U.S. explanation that the shield was designed to protect against an Iranian threat. (An interceptor system targeting Iranian missiles would be more appropriately stationed in Jordan than in Poland, after all, and Moscow's vehement opposition to the planned deployment on its doorstep was based on fears that it actually was aimed at weakening Russia's own nuclear deterrent, because the system would be able to intercept Russia's missiles in the so-called boost stage.) Meanwhile, Obama's decision...
...Still, giving up the protection offered by the missile shield is not particularly difficult for the U.S. - for the simple reason that the shield doesn't offer any significant protection. The system that would have been deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic was in every sense a work in progress whose testing had not yet proved any real-world capacity to deal with a hostile missile threat. In that sense, the missile "shield" was every bit as hypothetical as the Iranian missile threat against which it was ostensibly deployed...
...Poland In Warsaw, where on Thursday, Sept. 17, Poles marked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of the country, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the Associated Press that Obama had assured him in a phone call that plans to alter the missile-defense project would not hurt Poland's security. But some were skeptical. "It's not good," former Polish President and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told the AP. "I can see what kind of policy the Obama Administration is pursuing towards this part of Europe. The way we are being approached needs to change." Aleksander Szczyglo...