Obama vows to go ahead with missile shield

[Pk_Thunder]

Sunday, November 09, 2008
WARSAW: US president-elect Barack Obama has told Polish President Lech Kaczynski he will go ahead with plans to build a missile defence shield in eastern Europe despite threats from Russia, Warsaw said on Saturday.

‘Barack Obama has underlined the importance of the strategic partnership between Poland and the United States, he expressed his hope of continuing the political and military cooperation between our two countries.

‘He also said the anti-missile shield project would go ahead,’ said a statement issued by Kaczynski after the two men spoke by telephone.

Warsaw and Washington signed a deal on August 14 to base part of a US missile shield in Poland, amid Moscow’s vehement opposition and mounting East-West tensions over Georgia.

The US wants to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland plus a radar facility in the neighbouring Czech Republic by 2011-2013 to complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.

Washington says the shield — endorsed by Nato in February — is aimed at fending off potential attacks by so-called ‘rogue states’ such as Iran, and is in no way aimed at Russia.

The United States warns that Iran could develop long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads by 2015-2017.

The plan has enraged Moscow, master of Poland and the then Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Both countries broke from the crumbling communist bloc in 1989, joined Nato in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

Regarding them as a grave security threat, the Kremlin has threatened to aim its own missiles at the planned US installations.

Just hours after Obama’s victory speech, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would station short-range missile systems in its Kaliningrad enclave wedged between Poland and fellow EU member Lithuania.

US negotiator John Rood said on Thursday that Washington had given Russia fresh proposals to try to ease its concerns and hoped the row could still be resolved.

He said the offer was sent ‘earlier this week,’ before Medvedev announced his plans to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad.

Medvedev’s remarks on Wednesday amounted to a warning shot to Obama and Washington’s allies in central Europe.

Rood, the US under secretary for arms control and international security, said the proposals submitted to Russia built on previous ones that would allow Russian authorities access to the missile shield sites.

‘We’ve elaborated on our previous proposals,’ Rood told reporters without going into detail. Rood planned to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ryabkov in the coming weeks, probably in Moscow, to discuss the proposals as well as other issues, including cooperation on avoiding nuclear terrorism.

He said he was still optimistic about a solution despite Medvedev’s threat to deploy missiles, which he called ‘disappointing’ and ‘unwelcome.’

The European Union and Nato also expressed strong concern over Russia’s decision to deploy missiles on the EU’s doorstep.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his part urged Obama to discuss the missile shield plan with the Russians.

‘I expect Obama to seek such a dialogue,’ he told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt. ‘I expect the Russian government likewise to approach the Russians and Americans.’

Condemning Medvedev’s announcement, he said Russia had sent ‘the wrong signal at the wrong time,’ with the arrival of ‘a new US president speaking of a new departure and new partnerships.’

 

[Pk_Thunder]

November 09, 2008
WARSAW: US president-elect Barack Obama has told Polish President Lech Kaczynski he will go ahead with plans to build a missile defence shield in eastern Europe despite threats from Russia, Warsaw said on Saturday.

‘Barack Obama has underlined the importance of the strategic partnership between Poland and the United States, he expressed his hope of continuing the political and military cooperation between our two countries.

‘He also said the anti-missile shield project would go ahead,’ said a statement issued by Kaczynski after the two men spoke by telephone.

Warsaw and Washington signed a deal on August 14 to base part of a US missile shield in Poland, amid Moscow’s vehement opposition and mounting East-West tensions over Georgia.

The US wants to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland plus a radar facility in the neighbouring Czech Republic by 2011-2013 to complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.

Washington says the shield — endorsed by Nato in February — is aimed at fending off potential attacks by so-called ‘rogue states’ such as Iran, and is in no way aimed at Russia.

The United States warns that Iran could develop long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads by 2015-2017.

The plan has enraged Moscow, master of Poland and the then Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Both countries broke from the crumbling communist bloc in 1989, joined Nato in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

Regarding them as a grave security threat, the Kremlin has threatened to aim its own missiles at the planned US installations.

Just hours after Obama’s victory speech, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would station short-range missile systems in its Kaliningrad enclave wedged between Poland and fellow EU member Lithuania.

US negotiator John Rood said on Thursday that Washington had given Russia fresh proposals to try to ease its concerns and hoped the row could still be resolved.

He said the offer was sent ‘earlier this week,’ before Medvedev announced his plans to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad.

Medvedev’s remarks on Wednesday amounted to a warning shot to Obama and Washington’s allies in central Europe.

Rood, the US under secretary for arms control and international security, said the proposals submitted to Russia built on previous ones that would allow Russian authorities access to the missile shield sites.

‘We’ve elaborated on our previous proposals,’ Rood told reporters without going into detail. Rood planned to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ryabkov in the coming weeks, probably in Moscow, to discuss the proposals as well as other issues, including cooperation on avoiding nuclear terrorism.

He said he was still optimistic about a solution despite Medvedev’s threat to deploy missiles, which he called ‘disappointing’ and ‘unwelcome.’

The European Union and Nato also expressed strong concern over Russia’s decision to deploy missiles on the EU’s doorstep.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier for his part urged Obama to discuss the missile shield plan with the Russians.

‘I expect Obama to seek such a dialogue,’ he told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt. ‘I expect the Russian government likewise to approach the Russians and Americans.’

Condemning Medvedev’s announcement, he said Russia had sent ‘the wrong signal at the wrong time,’ with the arrival of ‘a new US president speaking of a new departure and new partnerships.’[/URL]

 

[Imran Khan]

presedent change in USA but not pentagon change his policy i think step by step obama go like uncle bush

 

[Neo]

Obama and American power ​

By Joseph S Nye

In a world where borders are becoming increasingly porous to everything from drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism, America must mobilise international coalitions to address shared threats and challenges

One of the first challenges that President Barack Obama will face is the effects of the ongoing financial crisis, which has called into question the future of American power. An article in The Far Eastern Economic Review proclaims that “Wall Street’s crack-up presages a global tectonic shift: the beginning of the decline of American power.” Russian President Dmitri Medvedev sees the crisis as a sign that America’s global leadership is coming to an end, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has declared that Beijing is now much more relevant than New York.

Yet the dollar, a symbol of American financial power, has surged rather than declined. As Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former chief economist of the IMF notes, “It is ironic, given that we just messed up big-time, that the response of foreigners is to pour more money into us. They’re not sure where else to go. They seem to have more confidence in our ability to solve our problems than we do.”

It used to be said that when America sneezed, the rest of the world caught a cold. More recently, many claimed that with the rise of China and the petro-states, an American slowdown could be decoupled from the rest of the world. But when the United States caught the financial flu, others followed. Many foreign leaders quickly switched from schadenfreude to fear — and to the security of US treasury bills.

Crises often refute conventional wisdom, and this one reveals that the underlying strength of the American economy remains impressive. The poor performance of Wall Street and America regulators has cost America a good deal in terms of the soft power of its economic model’s attractiveness, but the blow need not be fatal if, in contrast to Japan in the 1990’s, the US manages to absorb the losses and limit the damage. The World Economic Forum still rates the American economy as the world’s most competitive, owing to its labour-market flexibility, higher education, political stability, and openness to innovation.

The larger question concerns the long-term future of American power. A new forecast for 2025 being prepared by the US National Intelligence Council projects that American dominance will be “much diminished,” and that the one key area of continued American superiority — military power — will be less significant in the competitive world of the future. This is not so much a question of American decline as “the rise of the rest.”

Power always depends on context, and in today’s world, it is distributed in a pattern that resembles a complex three-dimensional chess game. On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar and likely to remain so for a while. But on the middle chessboard, economic power is already multi-polar, with the US, Europe, Japan and China as the major players, and others gaining in importance.

The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations that cross borders outside of government control. It includes actors as diverse as bankers electronically transferring sums larger than most national budgets, as well as terrorists transferring weapons or hackers disrupting internet operations. It also includes new challenges like pandemics and climate change. On this bottom board, power is widely dispersed, and it makes no sense to speak of unipolarity, multipolarity or hegemony.

Even in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the giddy pace of technological change is likely to continue to drive globalisation, but the political effects will be different for the world of nation-states and the world of non-state actors. In inter-state politics, the most important factor will be the continuing “return of Asia.”

In 1750, Asia had three-fifths of the world population and three-fifths of the world’s economic output. By 1900, after the industrial revolution in Europe and America, Asia accounted for just one-fifth of world output. By 2040, Asia will be well on its way back to its historical share.

The rise of China and India may create instability, but it is a problem with precedents, and we can learn from history about how policies can affect the outcome. A century ago, Britain managed the rise of American power without conflict, but the world’s failure to manage the rise of German power led to two devastating World Wars.

The rise of non-state actors also must be managed. In 2001, a non-state group killed more Americans than the government of Japan killed at Pearl Harbour. A pandemic spread by birds or travellers on jet aircrafts could kill more people than perished in World Wars I or II. The problems of the diffusion of power (away from states) may turn out to be more difficult than shifts in power between states.

The challenge for Barack Obama is that more and more issues and problems are outside the control of even the most powerful state. Although the US does well on the traditional measures of power, those measures increasingly fail to capture much of what defines world politics, which, owing to the information revolution and globalisation, is changing in a way that prevents Americans from achieving all their international goals by acting alone.

For example, international financial stability is vital to American prosperity, but the US needs the cooperation of others to ensure it. Global climate change, too, will affect the quality of life, but the US cannot manage the problem alone. And, in a world where borders are becoming increasingly porous to everything from drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism, America must mobilise international coalitions to address shared threats and challenges.

As the world’s largest economy, American leadership will remain crucial. The problem of American power in the wake of the financial crisis is not one of decline, but of a realisation that even the most powerful country cannot achieve its aims without the help of others. Fortunately, Barack Obama understands that. —DT-PS

Joseph S Nye Jr, a former US assistant secretary of defence, is a Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and author, most recently, of The Powers to Lead

 

[pkpatriotic]

Obama adviser: No commitment on defense shield - CNN.com
Sat November 8, 2008

An adviser to Barack Obama disputed claims made on the Polish president's Web site.

(CNN) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has made "no commitment" to plans for a missile defense program in eastern Europe, despite a report on the Polish president's Web site, an Obama adviser said Saturday.

Obama spoke to President Lech Kaczynski over the phone about continuing military and political cooperation between the two countries and possibly meeting in person soon, both sides said.

Obama "had a good conversation with the Polish president and the Polish prime minister about the important U.S.-Poland alliance," said Denis McDonough, Obama's senior foreign policy adviser.

However, Kaczynski's office says on its Web site that during the same conversation, Obama told Kaczynski that he intends to continue plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe.

Obama's adviser denied the report.

[B]"President Kaczynski raised missile defense, but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it. His position is as it was throughout the campaign: that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable," McDonough said.[/B]

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Obama also had a phone conversation and agreed to meet soon.

"During the discussion, both sides emphasized that relations between Russia and the USA are priority ones for both parties and that their positive development is crucial not only for the peoples of the two countries but also for the wider international community," a statement from the Kremlin said.

Russia has been infuriated by U.S. plans for the missile-defense installation, which includes basing missile interceptors in Poland. The interceptor rockets would be linked to an air-defense radar system in the Czech Republic.

The United States has tried to mollify Russia by stressing that the missile defense is directed at rogue states, such as Iran, and that the number of interceptors in the shield would be "easily overwhelmed" by Russian forces.

Medvedev, in his first state-of-the-nation speech since taking office this year, warned this week that Russian missiles will be deployed against the planned system.

"The Iskander missile system will be deployed in Kaliningrad region to neutralize, when necessary, the missile shield," Medvedev said. "We are also planning to use the resources of the Russian naval fleet for these purposes."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Medvedev's announcement that Russia would deploy missiles in response to the shield is "disappointing."

Russian officials have warned that deploying the missile shield would open Poland up to an attack in the event of conflict.

Russia fears that the missile shield would blunt its nuclear deterrent.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman reiterated Wednesday that the missiles are not aimed at Russia and are designed as a defensive shield for U.S. allies in Europe. He said the shield is designed with the possibility of Iranian ballistic missiles in mind.

Watch video by click following link:
Obama adviser: No commitment on defense shield - CNN.com

QUOTE:

In my oppinion, if Obama wants to really grasp what should be a budgetary imperative — scrapping a defense program that has amounted to one of the grossest waste of tax dollars in history — the first step is to underline what the Bush administration has always been eager to obscure: that missile defense technology has yet to convincingly demonstrate it can work.

Just suppose that three decades after Kennedy had announced his mission to land a man on the Moon, it hadn’t happened and NASA was saying, “we’re working on it and we’re making great strides — we just need a few billion more dollars.” The program would rightly be seen as a farce and be cut back or suspended.

Missile defense deserves no more credibility, but shifting the narrative from “indispensable” to “white elephant”, merely requires stating the obvious: it doesn’t work. But not only that, even if all the technical obstacles could be overcome, the risk of nuclear weapons being delivered by missiles should really be among the least of our fears.

Obama is not about to make a bold move but at least he seems to be inching in the right direction for his own land USA, even if not for the whole world.