Will Obama support US missile defence?

By Ben Folley

As European elections approach it is always interesting to note how Labour’s sister parties are doing. The news that in the middle of its six month presidency of the European Union, the Czech Republic’s conservative government has lost a vote of confidence is something of a knockout blow following the pummeling it received over its support for US Missile Defence a week earlier. Between the two victories the Social Democrats held a buoyant party congress where amongst other votes, they reaffirmed their commitment to forcing early elections and continuing to oppose the US Missile Defence plans.

On the 17th March last week, Czech Prime Minister Topolanek was humiliatingly forced into withdrawing from the parliamentary agenda the treaties agreed to deploy a US Missile Defence radar when it was apparent they would lose a vote in the Chamber. He was forced to call a recess where he then made a TV address announcing he would ‘temporarily withdraw’ the treaties and prevent a vote taking place, but said ‘we have not given up on the ratification process.’

The vulnerable Czech government has taken a major risk backing US Missile Defence, as has the Polish government who had bargained hard before suddenly signing up at the time of the conflict in South Ossetia. Last week Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said ‘When we started discussing this with the United States, the US assured us they would persuade the Russians that it was purely defensive and it would be a non-controversial decision.’

In the Czech Republic public opposition has not shifted from around 70% in the past two years, producing what some commentators are calling the first major social movement since 1991, and during which the Social Democrats have surged ahead of Topolanek’s party. In October last year, when a third of the Senate came up for election, they took 23 of 27 seats. At the same time, in votes for the thirteen regional governments, the Social Democrats became the largest party in twelve regions. The US hope to build the radar at Brdy in Central Bohemia region, but the new Social Democrat governor David Rath is a strong opponent of the proposals and has announced he will write to Barack Obama and ask him to withdraw his plans.

Such a change of heart is not entirely inconceivable. Obama has committed only to supporting US Missile Defence if it can be proven to work and is cost effective, both of which can be questioned given the results of the tests carried out following the billions ploughed into the project by George W. Bush.

The government here should bear this in mind. Over 100 MPs are now calling on the government to scrutinise US missile defence deployment plans in the UK and their implications for UK and European security as a whole, particularly given the destabilising effect on relations with Russia. Opposition is widespread across the continent and polling in Britain shows our own involvement is unpopular. As we approach the European elections, anyone discussing the subject with members of our sister parties will find that opposition to the system is widespread from those in the Czech Republic and Poland, where Bush had proposed two new bases, in neighbouring Germany, Austria or Slovakia, or leading Socialist Group MEPs such as Martin Schulz, Jan Marinus Wiersma and Ana Maria Gomes.

Given the uneasy stance of both Obama and the Democrats, this is an area of US foreign policy where European social democracy could be pushing at an open door to find another way.