How Obama Sold Out

This summer I had the opportunity to spend two weeks studying geostrategic journalism in the Czech Republic. My time there was remarkable, and the Collegiate Network provided me access to sources that were more knowledgeable in Czech foreign policy than I ever could have imagined. As I sat in the Czech Senate, talked to foreign policy experts in the Czech State Department, and spoke to regular Czech citizens on the street, I noticed that Czechs were not only amazingly hopeful that the Obama Administration would move democracy forward in Central Europe but also very adamant that the U.S. missile shield be deployed.

The Czechs had every reason to be optimistic about Obama. He came to visit Prague in his first international tour, something no U.S. president had done since the first President Bush had come in the wake of the fallen Berlin Wall. Obama’s rhetoric matches that of the classic liberal, putting an emphasis on the free choice of nations and individual national sovereignty. From all indications, Obama would be a different type of Democrat than Roosevelt, who acquiesced to Soviet domination of Central and Eastern Europe, throwing the entire region into a reign of darkness.

Perhaps this optimism is the reason why the Czechs are so disappointed now. Obama’s scrapping of the missile shield was a blatant sell-out. The Russians, to be fair, were putting up stiff resistance to the missile shield, but this resistance was token at best. As one Czech foreign policy official told me, “The Russians want the Americans to put the shield on one of their countries…as if we are still a Soviet satellite and can’t make our own decisions.” It is highly doubtful that the Russians would have taken concrete action against the Czechs for deploying the U.S. missile shield, especially since the missile shield would not have presented any danger to the Russians themselves.

The physics and mathematics of the situation are crucially important. The U.S. proposal included a radar system in the Czech Republic and actual antiballistic missiles in Poland. This system would protect the United States only from ballistic missiles originating from Iran, not from Russia. It seems strange, therefore, that the Obama administration would take the Russian’s opinion into such high account considering that the Russians had no security stake in the matter whatsoever.

It seems doubtful that the Obama administration actually scrapped the missile shield in order to save money. The stimulus packages makes this look like chump change. Additionally, if this missile shield is thought of as insurance, the economic tradeoff is a very good one. Billions or trillions of dollars of U.S. money would be lost if Iran successfully delivered a missile to Western Europe or the east coast of the United States. Some missile experts think that Iran can successfully deploy this type of missile if left unchecked for five or ten years. Do we really trust the Iranians to make the sane move here?

Two possibilities, therefore, present themselves when considering why the Obama Administration made such an odd move. First, it is possible that the government achieved concessions from the Russians in exchange for the scrapped missile shield. This amounts to nothing more than a blatant sell out. Obama, upon taking office, promised a new era of cooperation with American allies. If this is the case, American allies will now no longer have significant incentive to help the United States achieve its goals, knowing that they might be double-crossed at any point.

Secondly, it is possible that Obama intends this as a goodwill gesture towards the Russians. President Carter tried something similar when he first took office, moving U.S. missiles away from the Soviet Union’s boarders, hoping that the U.S.S.R. would respond by rolling back its own missiles. The strategy failed miserably, eventually scarring Carter’s reputation in foreign policy beyond repair.

The Czechs are realistic about their own importance in the world, attempting to supplement NATO forces by providing specialization instead of bulk troops. They have provided NATO with the best chemical unit in the world, and strive to make sure that redundancy in NATO is kept to a minimum. Hopefully, the Obama administration continues to give the Czechs incentive to cooperate with NATO and the United States and does not leave them hanging out to dry like the Roosevelt Administration did.

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