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There is much talk these days about the need for the United States to reengage Russia’s leadership in a strategic dialogue.

But would Russia speak with one voice?

We’re already familiar with this basic problem because it has dogged the Bush administration. Throughout the Bush presidency, foreign policy has been personality-driven and intensely factionalized: ideologues associated with Rumsfeld and Cheney have battled pragmatists aligned with Powell and, to some extent, Gates and Rice. These divisions wreaked havoc on the coherence of U.S. foreign policy, particularly in nonproliferation where policy goals lurched between regime change and behavior change. (I highly recommend Mike Chinoy’s book Meltdown, which offers a riveting account of the Bush administration’s utterly dysfunctional North Korea policy process.)

Could a similar dynamic emerge in Russia? President Medvedev is the official Russian head of state, but it is no secret that Vladimir Putin — who as Prime Minister has virtually no legal control over the levers of government and, at least according to Russia’s 1993 constitution, serves at the pleasure of the president — nevertheless wields outsize influence. Even if the two men are in agreement on most issues, this arrangement undermines formal, transparent lines of authority by replacing them with contingent, potentially opaque personal relationships.

But where there is policy disagreement, the prospects for mischief and policy entrepreneurship by factions are very high. Just as infighting within the Bush administration made it extraordinarily difficult and frustrating for foreign countries to deal with Washington, infighting in Moscow would complicate dealings with Russia.

Medvedev and Putin are believed to be very close, and I am unaware of concrete, credible evidence to the contrary. But the durability of their relationship has not been seriously tested — yet. Like many countries, Russia faces extraordinarily difficult economic times ahead. Probable recession, low energy prices, and a lack of investment capital will impose tremendous demands on the Russian state to protect its citizens and companies, and it is inevitable that some factions will fare better than others due to resource constraints and rampant corruption. These problems could stoke political factionalization, lead to even more corruption, and strain Medvedev and Putin’s informal powersharing arrangement.

Moreover, in January Moscow will see its favorite whipping boy, the Bush administration, replaced by a popular new U.S. administration that has signaled a more multilateral approach to foreign policy. With the unifying foreign nemesis gone, cracks in Moscow’s foreign policy consensus may begin to appear.

None of this is to suggest that the United States shouldn’t seek a new strategic dialogue with Russia. It most emphatically should. But it must go in with open eyes and realistic expectations.

Comment [7]

Building on James’ post yesterday, Medvedev’s announcement about putting missiles in Kaliningrad shows that the Russians are quickly becoming their own worst enemy. Why Medvedev would revert to clumsy chest thumping at a time when cooler heads are set to retake Washington is just mind-boggling. I get that this move is great red meat for the Russian street. But does Medvedev really think that turning missile defense into a pissing match with the next U.S. administration will convince Washington to back away from the third site? Come on, comrades, let’s get real here…

Comment [55]

Greetings, Readers of the Wonk. My name is Robert Zarate, and I’m a research fellow at the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. I’ll be guest-blogging this week, but before getting started, I wanted first to thank Jeffrey Lewis for the kind offer—and the wonderful opportunity—to do this.

To kick things off, I thought I’d write about something that dovetails with one of Anya Loukianova’s posts from last week, and share with all y’all a recent essay that I wrote for NPEC on the future of Megatons to Megawatts (M2M) in the wake of the so-called Domenici Amendment, a recent law sponsored by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) that creates new commercial incentives for Russia to keep blending down high enriched uranium (HEU) after 2013:

Robert Zarate, How Much More Bomb Uranium Will Russia Blend Down? Washington, D.C.: NPEC, October 31, 2008.

Quick Background on Megatons to Megawatts

To recap, Megatons to Megawatts is a Russo-American arms control program to demilitarize bomb-grade uranium—taken from dismantled Soviet-era nuclear warheads—for use in civil nuclear commerce. Under the so-called HEU Agreement, the bilateral 1993 pact that created M2M’s basic framework, Russia agreed over a 20-year period to blend down 500 metric tons of Russian bomb-grade uranium; and the United States, correspondingly, to facilitate the sale of the resulting downblended low enriched uranium (LEU) to U.S. nuclear utilities.

It is important to note that Russian LEU imports outside of the Megatons to Megawatts framework are strictly limited under the terms of a 1992 accord (known as the Russian Suspension Agreement, or RSA) in which Russia agreed to halt practically all uranium sales to U.S. nuclear utilities in return for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s suspension of an antidumping investigation on Russian uranium sales. The worry (then and now) was that Russia—which would end up inheriting some 80 percent of the USSR’s massive government-built and government-financed nuclear complex—could sell LEU and other uranium goods at below fair-market value prices, and fatally undercut America’s still-fledgling civil uranium enrichment sector.

Under Megatons to Megawatts, Russia so far has blended down some 345 metric tons of HEU, equivalent at least to 13,800 nuclear warheads, if one assumes—as the International Atomic Energy Agency does—25 kilograms of HEU per warhead. (However, as the NRDC’s Tom Cochran and Christopher Paine have argued, the assumption of 25 kilograms of HEU per warhead is high and conservative; some experts have told me that, for U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads, a more reasonable assumption might be, say, 12 kilograms.) The U.S. Department of Energy reports that the resulting downblended Russian LEU from Megatons to Megawatts accounts for “nearly half” — yes, folks, “nearly half” — of the nuclear fuel now annually consumed by America’s civil nuclear power reactors.

By the start of 2014, when the current HEU Agreement is set expire, Russia will have earned as much as US$12 billion from Megatons to Megawatts. Moscow, however, appears (at this point) not all that keen to agree to a new, post-2013 HEU downblending pact. But this is where Senator Domenici’s new law comes in . . . .

After the Domenici Amendment: Will Russia Keep Blending Down HEU?

Having watched from afar the development of the Domenici Amendment over the last few months, I must say how truly remarkable it is that it was even passed into law this year. Suffice to say, his staff pulled one heckuva proverbial “Hail Mary” pass to get this bill onto H.R. 2638, a so-called continuing resolution to sustain certain Federal appropriations until March 2009, that passed the Congress in late September.

The Domenici Amendment not only affirms the terms of an existing bilateral accord (known as the 2008 Amendment to the Russian Suspension Agreement) that will allow normal Russian LEU exports to make up as much as 20 percent of America’s post-2013 uranium market, but also promises to increase this market access up to 25 percent if Russia agrees to blend down an additional 300 metric tons of HEU. [The Amendment also creates a new and independent legal basis for the U.S. Commerce Department to enforce limits on Russian LEU imports, with the effect of specifically shielding Russian LEU import limits from any impact that the U.S. Supreme Court’s forthcoming decisions on USEC v. Eurodif and U.S. v. Eurodif might have had. — Added on 11/05/2008 @ 7:57 am.]

In addition, and in contrast to the 1993 HEU Agreement, the Domenici Amendment neither expressly calls for Russia to sell its downblended LEU exclusively to U.S. nuclear utilities (i.e., the Russians would be free to sell downblended uranium globally or to use it domestically), nor explicitly requires downblended Russian LEU to conform to the stringent isotopic standards for nuclear fuel set by ASTM International, formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials.

Will all the above incentives be enough to persuade Russia to blend down more bomb-grade uranium? As my essay discusses, it is not yet clear what effect the Domenici Amendment’s new commercial incentives will have on the possibility of post-2013 Russian HEU downblending. (If you have access to Platts publications, check out Daniel Horner’s very recent article on this question: Horner, “Russian Downblending of HEU after 2013 Unlikely, Some Say,” NuclearFuel, Vol. 33, No. 22, November 3, 2008, pp. 6-7. See also Matthew Bunn’s July 2008 essay, Expanded and Accelerated HEU Downblending: Designing Options to Serve the Interests of All Parties.)

Nonetheless, given that Russia will have an estimated 770 metric tons of bomb-grade uranium— and the United States, an estimated 675 metric tons —after the current HEU Agreement expires, you can expect to hear much more about these bilateral civil and military uranium issues in the years to come.

For more on these issues, check out my NPEC essay.

Comment

A week ago, the State Department announced the imposition of sanctions for alleged supply of WMD and missile-related technology or destabilizing conventional weapons systems in accordance with the provisions of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act (P.L. 109-353). Sanctions were levied against 13 entities from seven countries, as this Global Security Newswire story summarized. And Russia’s Rosoboronexport got sanctioned for dealing with Iran again.

In October’s ACT, Wade Boese offered up a great analysis of the Bush administration’s nonproliferation sanctions policy complete with some neat quotes on sanctions aficionado and the darling of this blog, John Bolton. But because Wade’s article chiefly focused on sanctions of Chinese and Iranian entities, I wanted to write something about the sanctions levied against Russian entities for their trade with countries of concern.

What bugs me here is State’s timing of the sanctions. In a true John Bolton fashion, the Russians got poked in the eye just as they were gearing up to talk START with State. Belatedly sanctioning Russia’s state conventional arms intermediary Rosoboronexport for a transfer of a short range air defense system that was completed in early 2007 seems silly. Yet, this latest imposition notwithstanding, an analysis of the number of State’s sanctions against Russian entities during the last eight years delivers surprising results.

The Russians Say Grrr…

The Russian response to last week’s sanctions determination was quite predictable.

In a 24 October release ^rus, Rosoboronexport complained that by imposing sanctions, the U.S. was engaging in “unfair competition.” And President Dmitriy Medvedev clearly followed the company’s talking points when he used the same “unfair competition” line a few days later.

However, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ official release and Sergey Lavrov’s personal reaction were more colorful.

We consider this absolutely unacceptable, as our entire trade and economic activities in Iran and military-technical cooperation with that country are strictly compliant with the norms existing in international law, with our international obligations and with the export control regime currently in force in Russia. Here there can be no explanations other than another instance of arrogant application by the United States in an exterritorial manner of its national American laws. If it seems to some people in Washington that the US will thus make Russia more pliant towards accepting the American approach to resolving the Iranian nuclear problem, this is a mistake.

The story got nice press coverage. WaPo’s Glenn Kessler even picked up on the peculiar fact that State apparently “granted [Rosoboronexport] a partial waiver to permit the sale of nearly two dozen Russian helicopters to Iraq.” This fact, by the way, was not mentioned by Russian officials or brought up in Russian press coverage.

However, Kessler’s story (along with many others) did not discuss what triggered the sanctions on Rosoboronexport. Kessler surprisingly settled for a non-response from State, writing that State officials “declined to specify why the companies were placed on the list, saying the reasons are classified.”

What Was Transferred and When?

The reason for the sanctions actually seems quite boring. The same Rosoboronexport press release ^rus, which got cited aplenty for the “unfair competition” line, says that

The decision of the State Department was triggered by Russia’s transfer of the 29 Tor-M1, which supposedly disrupted the balance of forces in the region, and could potentially threaten U.S. forces… The appearance of the Tor-M1 in Iran doesn’t do more than allow for enhancing the protection of most critical small-scale facilities of state and military administration, elements of infrastructure (including nuclear energy, chemical manufacturing, and electrical power stations) from precision weapons strikes.

What Rosoboronexport meant to say by issuing this clarification was that the Tor-M1 was the only thing the company had transferred since it was last sanctioned by State in December 2006. Thus, it had not (yet?) transferred the mighty S-300 to Iran.

On the face of it, State’s wrath for the seemingly defensive Tor-M1 is also not unusual. For about a decade, they’ve been compelled to sanction the Russians for every defense item ever sold — and not sold — to the Iranians. Yet, the Tor-M1 transfer was completed as far back as January 2007. The Russians were even preparing to get punished for the transfer that same month. Surprisingly, though, the sanctions didn’t come until a year and half later.

What’s the Deal With State’s Timing?

Short answer: Dunno. But I wonder…

It’s been pointed out to me that there is a bureaucratic delay between the time a determination is made that a transfer potentially punishable under U.S. law has occurred and the time the imposition of the sanctions is actually announced. Thus, it is quite plausible that the January 2007 transfer of the Tor-M1 was completed too late for State to punish Rosoboronexport as part of the April 2007 round of Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act sanctions, the only round that seems to have preceded the October 2008 one.

But why haven’t we seen more rounds of Iran and Syria (and North Korea) Nonproliferation Act sanctions since April 2007? And does this have anything to do with a possible reshuffle in the Department of State’s bureaucracy as related to the imposition of sanctions? Just looking at the Federal Register notice, it’s quite clear that the point of contact is now at the Bureau of Verification, Compliance and Implementation instead of the usual Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.

The Russians were certain to growl about the sanctions. Yet, State officials had to have known that due to Moscow’s interest in re-starting START, there wouldn’t have been any unexpected policy shifts. And by imposing the sanctions now, some at State might have figured that the Russians would easily swallow them as a farewell present from the departing politicos.

A Concluding Note on Russian Proliferation Trends

If instances of sanctions are to be held as any determinant of State’s perception of Russian proliferation trends, then here are the stats (conventional and WMD-related technology sanctions combined):

For purposes of comparison, during a 1998-1999 Congressional sanctions binge, a total of 14 Russian entities were sanctioned.

Yet, during and after the John Bolton sanctions spree, the record of sanctions on Russian entities and individuals was as follows: three times in 2002, just once in 2003, five times in 2004, five times in 2006 (sanctions on Sukhoy were lifted), zero in 2007, and just once in 2008 (the latter for the Tor-M1, transferred in 2007).

Seems to me the Russian record of proliferation to countries of concern, and Iran in particular, is today less of a cause for concern, at least according to the State Department. And this, of course, is a very positive thing.

Comment [11]

Thanks for all of your comments on the previous post. Yet, I am surprised that no one mentioned the one ongoing attempt to practically implement the multilateral nuclear approaches concept – Russia’s International Uranium Enrichment Center at Angarsk.

We all know the story. The idea grew out of Russia’s 2005 proposal that Iran share ownership of a uranium-enrichment plant, based in Russia. But when that fell through, Moscow committed to creating the IUEC at Angarsk, the first of a network of international centers that would provide nuclear fuel cycle services on a non-discriminatory basis. (By the way, Jane blogged about it here.)

The Angarsk IUEC concept can be summarized as follows:

• Equal, non-discriminatory membership for all interested countries not envisaging the development of indigenous sensitive nuclear technologies and meeting the established non-proliferation requirements;
• IUEC membership “advantages” (political, economic, scientific and technical) for the enrichment services recipient countries should outweigh the “disadvantages” of refraining from the development of domestic nuclear fuel cycle capabilities;
• IUEC enrichment capacities are to be placed under IAEA safeguards; involvement of the IAEA in the Center’s management;

• Foreign IUEC members will have no access to Russian uranium enrichment technology.

And since January 2006, when Vladimir Putin first announced the concept, the Russians have come a long way in terms of practical implementation of the IUEC. They have a dedicated facility, the IUEC is legally incorporated as a joint stock company and is allowed to own nuclear materials.

Russia also has already recruited two additional participants – Armenia and the uranium-rich Kazakhstan; both of the countries have committed not to develop domestic enrichment capabilities. They’ve also apparently clinched a commitment to participate in the IUEC from Ukraine (despite all of the problems in bilateral relations). (Here is a good summary of IUEC progress.)

But quite a few challenges and questions remain:

• Membership: The IUEC obviously needs more members. Rosatom has promoted the idea to quite a few other countries, including Japan, South Korea, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, Uzbekistan, and even Mongolia. (Early on, it was also pitched to the Indians, conditioning their participation on the NSG exemption.) But what countries would you want to commit to the center and how much stake should they get?

• Incentives for potential members: These take forever to figure out and negotiate on a case-by-case basis. Participation in Angarsk usually comes with a package of other “stuff” – for example, just for little Armenia, the Russian package included creation of joint venture for uranium prospecting, mining, and processing, a promise to assist with safety issues with Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power plant, and a Russian commitment to stand ready to build an Armenian NPP. What cookies do you offer to interested countries to get them to commit?

• IAEA safeguards: Transparency of the IUEC is key. In January 2008, Russia sent a note verbale to the IAEA regarding inclusion of the IUEC into the list of Russian facilities that could be subject to the IAEA safeguards. Yet, only the material at the IUEC will be safeguarded. Further, Moscow has been hoping to resolve practical safeguards issues with the IAEA since early 2008, but there still no official agreement. How do you balance transparency with nonproliferation?

• U.S. involvement: The Bush administration has been supportive of the IUEC. Earlier this year, there was even some talk of possible U.S. “material” cooperation with the Russians in the IUEC. These discussion, however, seemingly died out after the U.S.-Russian 123 Agreement was withdrawn. But would U.S. participation be a good thing or a bad thing politically for the purported non-discriminatory nature of the IUEC?

But, ultimately, the two questions I think really need answered are these:

• Does the fact that Moscow is seeking to profit take away from its commitment to the idea of sharing the fuel cycle for the sake of nonproliferation?

• Does the IUEC effort matter if Iran and other “countries of concern” are NOT participating? (Not participating yet?)

Comment [3]

I meant to add that Richard Clarke’s most recent book, Your Government Failed You has a fantastic account about tracking Russian nuclear weapons deployments.

The story, which involves the great Dennis Gormley, centers on Soviet units called “Mobile Technical Rocket Bases” (PTRB in the Russian acronym) that would ferry nuclear warheads to mobile missile units in the field:

The Soviets claimed to have no nuclear warheads in Germany and derided America for having put several thousand atomic warheads on German soil. Nonetheless, U.S. photography revealed that the Soviets had built well-guarded nuclear weapons bunkers in Germany. If a war started, we planned to destroy the bunkers quickly. My friend Dennis Gormley reminded me recently of what had happened in the late 1980s when he was running a small consulting firm. A young Russian soldier swam across the Oder River and defected. His captain, he said, had driven over the motorbike for which he had saved for years. It was more than the youth could take. So he defected and was quickly debriefed by U.S. intelligence and found to know nothing of value. The report on him said little but noted that he had worked in some sort of transportation unit called a PRTB.

Gormley had just explained to me his own work on trying to find PRTBs, the Russian acronym for Mobile Technical Rocket Base. Gormley believed that PRTBs actually placed the nuclear warheads on top of the Soviets’ mobile missiles in Europe. The warheads were stored separately to prevent some renegade officer from starting a nuclear war. In the event of an authorized war, the missiles would meet up with the warheads in predesignated clearings in the German woods. Along would come the PRTB and mate the warhead to the missiles. I told Gormley about the defector, and with Dennis’s help, the defector was debriefed again. His explanation of what a PRTB did was exactly what Gormley had guessed. And he was happy to locate his PRTB for us. He also noted that, of course, the nuclear warheads were not in the nuclear warhead storage areas. The storage sites were empty. They were just there for the Americans to bomb and think they had destroyed the threat. The real storage areas were hidden.

Years later after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Professor Gormley went to the East German site where the defector said the weapons had been. He found an abandoned base with “Keep Out” signs noting a radiation hazard. Police chased him away.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Chinese have the same procedure. At least one article on the Xinhua site, as Li Bin argues in Science and Gobal Security, described an exercise with a mobile ballistic missiles that was very similar. Here is Li’s description:

Another article on Xinhua News Agency’s website describes details of an exercise of patrol and retaliation of the Chinese strategic nuclear force. According to this article, the surviving missile TELs began their patrol after absorbing nuclear attacks; the missiles carried nuclear warheads and the warheads were put on the missiles on the fifth day in bad weather after the patrol began; the missile was simulated to be launched on the eighth day.

Josh Meyer in the Los Angeles Times has an excellent article about the potential casualties of the Russia-Georgia conflict — including the START Treaty.

Some high-level meetings have been postponed indefinitely, including a trip to Russia by John Rood, the acting undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, to discuss various security issues and to negotiate a new pact to replace the existing Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START.

For those of you who don’t follow this stuff, START — and its essential verification provisions — expire on December 5, 2009.

The treaty states that the parties shall meet to extend the treaty “no later than one year before the expiration of the 15-year period” — ie December 5, 2008. Apparently, the US position is that we have to have the meeting by December 5, 2008, but can have subsequent meetings and make the decision any time after that date.

I have been told that the Russians are taking a tougher reading — that the decision to extend must be taken by December 5, 2008. That is, in part, because they want our of some START restrictions in exchange for continuing the verification provisions. (WMD Insights has a nice, readable review of Russian motivations.)

We need to extend START — well at least the verification provisions. The problem is that the US opposes a legally-binding verification protocol. The US is frittering away time trying to convince Paula DeSutter and crew, who have been whining about how much paperwork START is. Seriously.

Anyway, I suspect the Russians will let up on their interpretation — but it is going to cost us. Boy, don’t you wish we’d done this a year ago? (See Frickin’ Extend START Already, June 21,2007.)

It seems pretty unlikely that the US and Russia will be able to complete an agreement by December 2008. But it is possible to get something done by December 2009. There are a lot of proposals, but I think one of the most interesting is an “Enhanced SORT.”

At least that’s the case made by Alexei Arbatov and Rose Gottemoeller in the most recent Arms Control Today (New Presidents, New Agreements? Advancing U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Control). And, you can leave comments on the article at the new ACA reader site.

Comment [2]

Hey folks! So much missile stuff lately — the National Academies has released its final report on conventonal prompt global strike and Iran claims to have launched a two stage missile (The Taepo-hab?).

I am in Ithaca attending a technical workshop on space security, surrounding by Geoff Forden, Ted Postol, David Wright and Benn Earthenberm, among others.

For now, though I want to share two more pictures of presumed Russian missile debris from Georgia from a colleague who wishes to remain anonymous.

Other notes on Russian conventional missile options:

• Michael Gordon has an article in the New York Times entitled Missile Launchers Tighten Russia’s Grip on Georgia that quotes American officials as saying Russia has deployed SS-21s in South Ossetia. (That doesn’t prejudice the claim that Russia used longer range missiles that could cover targets in Georgia from Russian territory.)

• GRAU numbers. Our commentators are leaning toward the possible use of the SS-26 based on the 9M723 numerical designation (GRAU number) on what appears to be a solid rocket motor.

• The portion of the rocket body laying across a car — perhaps in Poti — appears to be an SS-21. (I took the Gori designation from a hand gesture by Shota Utiashvili, which was ambiguous. The New York Times has another shot of the car, identified as having occurred in Poti.)

Comment [5]

Update: It has become clear to me that the Iskander is a modified SS-26 that should have a different SS-number. See the testimony of DIA Director Maples.

Anya Loukianova, blogging at Total Wonkerr observes that the Georgian Interior Ministry claims Russia launched conventionally-armed SS-26 “Iskander” missiles into Georgia. She also posted a link to the Russian denial.

Shota Utiashvili, Head of the Analytical Department at the Georgian Interior Ministry, shows photographs purporting to document debris from three Iskander (SS-26) missiles. (The original link to the press briefing was hard to find, so I uploaded it to YouTube.)

The Interior Ministry also released 23 images to back up the assertion — although I have to say that the debris doesn’t look to me like it came particularly from an SS-26. The debris is clearly Russian ordnance of some sort, although it could equally well be from conventionally-armed SS-21s the White House claims Russia used. (The White House said two, David Fulgham at Aviation Leak said at least 15.)

But I wouldn’t know an SS-26 if, well, its flaming debris fell on me. So, that’s where you come in, my friends.

Have a look at the images and tell me what you think:

[1], [2] Drawing and stock image of Iskander missile system

[3] A car in Gori crushed by debris. (Maybe a portion of a conventionally-armed SS-21?)

[4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] Three pieces of debris near the oil pipeline.

[11], [12], [13] Two pieces of debris in Gori.

[14], [15], [16], [17] One piece of spherical debris in a field.

[18], [19], [20] A piece of flaming debris.

[21], [22], [23] Images of one or more craters.

You can post in the comments or, if your employer might frown at that sort of activity, drop me a line at armscontrolwonk [at] gmail.com.

Comment [23]

Apparently, Poland gets a PAC-3 battery and US personnel as a tripwire, er defensive measure in exchange for hosting the European midcourse interceptor site:

A senior Pentagon official described an unusual part of this quid pro quo: an American Patriot battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American military personnel members. The expenses would be shared by both nations. American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines — facing east toward Russia.

Russia has long opposed the deal, saying the United States was violating post-cold-war agreements not to base its troops in former Soviet bloc states and devising a Trojan Horse system designed to counter Russia’s nuclear arsenal, not an attack by Iran or another adversary.

I still think Congress should cut the funding for the European site. I don’t mind moving NATO’s air defense east, particularly as long as the Russian armed forces are sitting in NATO aspirants. (Can we man it with contractors?)

But my question is this, why does Poland need PAC-3 when you have Tomasz Majewski?

Update: Representative Ellen Tauscher put out a press release that captures my reaction exactly:

Congresswoman
Ellen O. Tauscher
10TH District – California

Tauscher on Proposed U.S – Poland Missile Defense Pact

Washington DC – In response to news that The U.S. and Poland reached a deal on Thursday to place an American missile defense base on Polish territory, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, released the following statement.

“Russian military aggression against any of our allies justly causes great concern, and should be seen as a threat to stability in the region. But we must be careful not to confuse our response to this provocation with our efforts to establish a cooperative U.S. – NATO missile defense architecture.

The missile defense interceptors that would be located in Poland are not designed to protect against Russian missile threats, but a long-range threat from Iran that has not yet emerged. The U.S. has properly characterized Russia’s belligerent rhetoric about the proposed deployment – which would create no discernable threat to Russian capabilities —- as misguided. Any linking now of the proposed interceptors with recent Russian actions will only undermine months and months of U.S. assurances that there is no relationship.

I am also concerned that the agreement announced yesterday appears to give Poland a security relationship over and above what Poland currently enjoys as a member of NATO with the existing Article Five responsibilities among all members. The U.S. commitment to our NATO allies via Article Five is as serious a commitment as our nation makes. We need to be sure the proposed agreement with Poland does not imply that there is something better than our Article Five commitment; devaluing our commitments to other NATO allies.”

I take our commitment to NATO Article Five very seriously, and I am concerned that expediting this agreement, if it is understood as a reaction to Russian actions – could serve to ratify suspicions about our and NATO’s commitment to Article Five.”

By the way, did you know the OED lists four spellings for “discernible”?

Comment [7]