The Politics of Putting "Missile Shields" on Russia's Doorstep (yes, it's old news)

[Thoughts from - September 2009, revised May 2010]

Long range goals in U.S. relations with Russia should focus on making Russia part of the web of trade with the more stable and especially democratic countries of the world. At present, I believe Russia's export capacity consists of (1) petroleum, (2) weapons, and (3) ability to build nuclear facilities. The latter two tend to bind Russia to the more dangerous countries of the world, while petroleum, whose value may soar again, requires little in the way of an educated middle class work force [which I think is the most powerful factor in at least making a nation inclined to be stable] to keep money flowing in. Very likely the best way to diminish the power of potentially dangerous Russian elites (and the same for Islamic countries) is to hold down the cost of oil, and the best way to do that is the course we are on now, mostly in the name of "greenness" or reducing global warming. Oil is not unlike the "monoculture" of tobacco and later cotton in early American history. It can support a small elite with an economy mostly based on trading with other parts of the world without requiring a well educated general populace with some ability to think for themselves, as is required by a more balanced and diverse (and more intramural) economy.

The missile shields once promised to Poland and (the Czech Republic?) may have had psychological significance to those countries, but my most immediate reactions are that (1) I don't see under what scenario the missle shields could be useful - esp. against Russia, and (2) the whole project rests on an obvious and continued lie -- i.e. that their purpose had nothing to do with Russia.

If Russia were to attack Poland or the Czech Republic with nuclear weapons, they would, missile shield or no missile shield, risk severe retaliation from the West (and maybe even China which for now is a big beneficiary of a peaceful and stable world). Russia also might well receive a comparable amount of fallout as the countries attacked - Russia is downwind after all. And what could they get from it? A radioactive desert to occupy? The use of non-nuclear missiles would, I think not be that effective - such weapons serve better as terrorist tools than strategic weapons (why?). What they could accomplish by any sort of aggression is also very hard to see. Some might say Russia occupied half of non-Russian Europe before, so why couldn't it happen again? Well, they only did it in a nothing-to-lose state of affairs. The retreating Germans left a vacuum for them to flow into, and the wrecks of nations with no government or weapons. Poles and Czechs may have a very understandable visceral fear of Russia, given history, including how many of them could say their grandmother was raped by a Russian soldier. But the missile shield would not be effective against any plausible action by the Russia of today or any future Russia unless it were to be ruled by insane religious fanatics or insane Pol Pot style Communists.

I believe Russia has to have lost a huge amount of ground technologically. I would like to see some statistics on university education. And with probably steeper drop off in general production of technological goods, they have probably lost more in experience than in education (but I would welcome any correction from knowlegable sources). And as long as Russia does not use nuclear weapons they can be pretty confident nuclear weapons won't be used against them. So I think we have much more reason to fear nuclear weapons that escape Russia's control then we have to fear Russia using them. Russian military might seems to be reduced to the ability to fight small wars of the sort that help keep regimes in power by rallying patriotism, and the ability to blow up much of the world -- the latter only useful for blackmail if one convinces the world that one puts no value on ones own life.

It appears to me the "missile shield" was little more than a pointless provocation, following on over two decades of pointless provocations and humilations of Russia going back to a time, in the last few years of the USSR, when their top leadership was energetically trying to rejoin the world of sane peaceful nations. Despite what I see as its uselessness, it was something the leadership could use to frighten the Russian population, which could tend to commit both leadership and population to continued hostility to the West and esp. the U.S. I suspect Obama needs to back off from quite a few such pointless provocations before we can begin to establish a new set of lines not to be crossed by Russia or other nations.