BUB: Missile Defense

Updating the world of missile defense and deployments.

The consternation over Poland's hosting of US patriot batteries continues.

Poland's decision to deploy a battery of U.S. Patriot missiles just 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Russian border is neither political nor strategic, the Polish defense minister said Wednesday.
Bogdan Klich stressed that the base's proximity to Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad had nothing to do with the decision to station the missiles near the town of Morag rather than outside Warsaw.
"It did not have any significance — neither political nor strategic. The only reason was the good infrastructure," Klich told journalists on Wednesday evening.
Polish media reported earlier Wednesday that Defense Ministry experts came to the conclusion that Morag was the best place for the deployment of the Patriot missiles.
"In Morag we could offer the best conditions for American soldiers and the best technical base for the equipment," Klich said on Polish Radio.

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Dueling media campaigns are starting over US missile defense deployments, along predictable partisan lines.

The conservative Heritage Foundation, for instance, has modernized its message, producing the new film “33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age,” which warns of the looming threats posed by missiles, terrorists and nuclear weapons and stresses the need to counter threats with massive missile defense systems.

Taking a lesson from liberal MoveOn.org, Heritage offers to set up private screenings of its film and discussions around the country. But already some of the think tank’s opponents have snared a copy and will screen it with their own discussion Thursday evening at the Center for American Progress.

Arms control advocates are mobilizing to make sure the Obama administration follows through on its pledge to bring to Congress this year two potential treaties — the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. According to the Foreign Policy blog The Cable, 50 advocates from numerous think tanks converged at the Ploughshares Fund to coordinate their messages and maximize exposure for the issue.

In general, the issue of missiles and nukes is as deadly serious as it often is deathly dull. Because there hasn’t been a high-stakes political fight on the issue in recent years, creative messages are key and both sides are branching out.

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None of this is stopping the US-Russian talks over missile defense treaties, though.

The United States and Russia are currently in discussion over the issue of global missile defense, said U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle here on Wednesday.

Beyrle told the Ekho Moskvy radio station that Washington and Moscow were discussing the possibility to involve Russia into a system of global missile defense, on which two rounds of negotiations have been held between experts from the two countries.

The diplomat also said the two sides are discussing measures to develop cooperation in this field, adding that their talks on strategic arms reduction were to conclude in the very near future.

By: Brant