FP: Is the missile shield moving to Georgia?

Foreign Policy Magazine’s blog suggested Sept. 22 that the missile shield maybe headed to the Republic of Georgia.

Last week, US President Barack Obama announced he was canceling the deployment of radar and missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland. Russia praised this decision, having viewed the missile shield as a NATO encroachment and an escalation in the balance of forces in Eastern Europe.

My take: No way is this going to happen. Or at least it wouldn’t make much sense.

Although Obama’s decision to cancel the missile shield was packaged with what he called a more effective missile defense strategy against Iran, the reality is that this was a direct concession to Russia with the goal of further warming up relations between the two countries since the end of the Bush era. I for one applauded the move. The 10 unreliable interceptors that would have been based in Poland would have done little to stop a salvo of long-range missiles from either Iran or Russia; they were largely symbolic. Their deployment was part of a prolonged NATO strategy of systematically expanding its presence eastward and were just one more lightning rod for Russian mistrust of the (formerly?) anti-Russian alliance.

But back to the blog post. If putting the interceptors in Poland was going to piss off the Russians, imagine how they would feel about NATO further arming Georgia. Georgia, a country Russia fought a brief war with last year, that Russia continues to embargo, and does not recognize diplomatically. Oh sure, they’d love that change. Although putting the missile defense system in Georgia would geographically make more sense (assuming it’s goal actually is to defend the United States from Iran), pilling up missiles on Russia’s southern border as opposed to it’s western one will not be viewed as much of an improvement.

The blog post is probably right about Armenia and Azerbaijan though. Of the three Caucasus countries, Georgia is the only one that could be convinced to host the installations.