Arms Control & Non Proliferation
Documents & Texts from America.gov
08 July 2008
Rice Signs Missile Defense Agreement in Prague
By David I. McKeeby
Staff Writer
Washington -- A new agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic to host a key component of a Europe-based missile defense system marks a step toward safeguarding Europe and the international community, says U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“This missile defense agreement is significant as a building block, not just for the security of the United States and of the Czech Republic, but for the security of NATO and ultimately for the security of the international community as a whole because we do face important threats," Rice said July 8 en route to Prague, where she joined Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg to sign a deal allowing the United States to build and operate a radar station designed to detect hostile launches and guide unarmed interceptors to destroy incoming missiles.
Before breaking ground, the United States and the Czech Republic must complete a second, parallel “status of forces” agreement concerning 250 U.S. troops to service the site. Both agreements must be ratified by the Czech Parliament, where the government holds a thin majority.
At its 2008 Bucharest summit, the 26-nation NATO alliance endorsed U.S. plans to establish a missile defense system for the region by 2012, over strong objections from Russia, which argues that the missile defense system poses a potential strategic challenge. (See “Czech Republic, U.S. Agree to Missile Defense Radar Installation.”)
NATO experts counter that the system is designed to provide only limited defense against a relatively small number of missiles, and that the system’s 10 interceptor rockets would be far outweighed by Russia’s massive arsenal.
The United States has been working intensively to assuage Russia’s concerns about missile defense since 2001, when the Bush Administration made missile defense a top strategic priority. In recent years, Secretary Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have held “2+2 Talks” with their Russian counterparts on missile defense, followed by an ongoing dialogue between U.S. and Russian technical experts.
“We want the systems to be transparent to the Russians,” Rice said. “We want them to have a way of absolutely seeing for themselves what we know to be true, which is that these systems are in no way aimed at Russia.”
The talks have led to U.S. offers to work with host governments to open the facilities to Russian inspection and to Moscow’s offers to provide radar facilities. Russian officials continue to voice objections to the plan, even suggesting that Moscow may target Central European countries hosting components of the missile defense system.
Poland, which has offered to host the interceptors, is continuing its negotiations with Washington to seek additional funding to modernize its military and air defenses. As a fellow NATO ally, the United States supports Poland’s efforts to modernize its forces, Rice said, but added that “we are at a place where these negotiations need to come to conclusion.”
Missile defense was among several items at the top of President Bush’s agenda during his first official meeting with Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, on the sidelines of the G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan, July 7. Medvedev agreed to continue efforts started under his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, to fold the currently proposed defense system into a future missile defense system that would be managed jointly by the United States, Russia and Europe. (See “Bush, Russia’s Medvedev Highlight Agreement on Iran, North Korea.”)
Rice’s trip to Europe will continue with stops in Bulgaria, where she will accept an award for U.S. efforts to free Bulgarian medical personnel and a Palestinian doctor detained in Libya, followed by a visit to Georgia, where she will urge leaders to redouble efforts to peacefully resolve tensions with breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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