Star Wars in Poland
The American answer to diplomacy
continues to be "duh!".
To hear generals and political leaders in Washington and Moscow talk, you would imagine that the proposed U.S. ballistic missile defense base in Poland was already built or about to become operational: None of them on either side bothers to acknowledge that it will almost certainly never be built…
If the bases are not going to be built all these arguments are just shadow-boxing, like a medieval theological debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. So why are they taking place at all?
The first answer is that, although the Bush administration has only a year left in office and has lost control of both houses of Congress to an increasingly critical and assertive Democratic opposition, it has become so enamored of building the Polish BMD base that its policymakers are unable to admit to themselves that they no longer have any real hope of doing so…
With presidential elections due in Russia next May, Putin appears to be preparing to retain power as prime minister and parliamentary leader of the dominant United Russia Party in the State Duma, while staying within the letter of the law of the 1996 Yeltsin Constitution. Therefore, having strong anti-Western cards to play with the Russian public is more useful for him than ever.
So even if the BMD base in Poland will never be built, the fact that an increasingly isolated U.S. government is still determined to build it plays into Putin’s hands in portraying Washington as a threat to Russia.
Watch the puppetmasters continue their Punch and Judy dementia and wonder if the risk of war through accident or ego is not part of the script?
Posted: Tue - December 4, 2007 at 09:46 AM