The arms control and defense wonk world has been turned on its head by today's big news regarding the Obama administration's re-assessment of the Bush administration's pet project in Europe: a missile defense shield, consisting of ground-based interceptors based in Poland, and a radar array based in the Czech Republic.
The news broke very early in the morning today, via an article in the Wall Street Journal:
The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.
By mid-morning, the news had been spun by the traditional media and conservative pundits as:
OBAMA CANCELS MISSILE DEFENSE!
Now, I'm going to speak very slowly so that everyone can understand this:
Obama DID NOT "cancel missile defense". Hardly.
I did a brief interview with John Isaacs, the Executive Director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and asked to to explain what the difference between the Bush administration's plans and the Obama administration's revamped approach to missile defense. He had this to say:
The basic element announced today is the cancellation of a Bush idea but not a specific plan. The Bush administration had proposed to deploy a new missile that hasn't even been built, much less tested, in Poland and the Czech Republic. Unknown cost, unknown timing, unknown if it would work. Whereas the Obama administration -- and particularly -- the announcement was made by Secretary of Defense Gates as well as the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Cartwright, people extremely credible on these issues, saying we have a system that's much better, that's already been tested, these SM-3 missiles, we've tested at sea, we can try to produce a variant for land, it would be more relevant to the actual -- not the theoretical, but the actual -- threat from Iran on the short or medium distance rockets that might at some point be able to attack another country.
So, I would argue that the Bush administration really had a faith-based system. They said "we love the missile defense system we've already deployed in Alaska and California. We're going to try a related version - " not the same missiles, it would be new missiles, as I've already pointed out, that still had to be built and tested, "and we want to deploy it in Central Europe." And the Obama administration says "These are the facts, this is the technology, we're going to use something that we know works and we will deploy it faster and more reliably."
I asked him if it was basically theatre-based defense. He said:
Correct. That's another way to look at it. The Bush plan was in theory designed for long-range missiles and as the Pentagon official said today the Iranians don't have that kind of capacity at this point and won't have one for many years. So yes, it's more or less a theatre-based system, which is one where we've had more tests and more knowledge of whether the system will work, and that's what the Obama administration chose.
I pointed out to him that some of the conservative spin involved the usual: that we are leaving Europe unprotected. He said:
We're going to get the standard criticisms from the John Boltons and the Frank Gaffneys, and people like that, which are basically fact-free arguments. They're going to say, "The Russians are coming, we're abandoning Central Europe, Democrats don't want to defend either Central Europe or the United States," and that's absolutely not true. Here you have Secretary Gates, appointed first by President George W. Bush, saying in his press briefing today how much he believes in missile defense, but he believes in the systems that have been tested and shown to work as opposed to buying a system [based on just specifications] that, as we said, may or may not work in the future, at unknown cost.
So, the Gaffneys and the Boltons will argue one thing, but it's not based on the facts at all, but rather their strongly held opinion that any reduction, any change in what President George [W.] Bush proposed obviously is a weakening of this country. That's simply false.
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation's official statement is highly recommended reading, as is the related post over at the Nukes of Hazard. Both include statistics and facts that the media and pundits seem to have missed today. Please read them both.
It is also worth pointing out that arms control expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund, Joe Cirincione (whom I interviewed last month), was on FOX News today. They gave him approximately one-third of the time they gave John Bolton, but in that short time, Joe told it like it is, starting with:
If you like missile defense, you should like this program. It is going to put more military capability on station more quickly than the previous plan.
Check it out.
You can also read Joe Cirincione's assessment over at Foreign Policy:
The New Defense Realism: Obama's missile defense decision represents the victory of pragmatism over ideology.
The only people having problems with the plan are the hawks, the pundits, and the has-beens, like John Bolton. I'll take the word of experts, thank you.