Georgia war spurs on Poland, inks deal

[m21sniper]

US, Poland agree to anti-missile defense deal

By VANESSA GERA and MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writers

WARSAW, Poland - Poland and the United States reached an agreement Thursday to base American missile interceptors in Poland, going ahead with a plan that has angered Russia and threatened to escalate tensions with the region's communist-era master.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the United States had agreed to help augment Poland's defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors in the eastern European country.

"We have crossed the Rubicon," he said on the TVN24 news channel, referring to U.S. consent to meet Poland's demands.

Tusk said the agreement was initialed by negotiators late Thursday in Warsaw and includes a "mutual commitment" between the two nations — beyond that of NATO — to come to each other's assistance in case of danger.

That was an obvious reference to the force and ferocity with which Russia rolled into Georgia in recent days, taking the key city of Gori and apparently burning and destroying Georgian military outposts and airfields.

The agreement still needs approval from Poland's government and a final signing from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a yet unspecified date.

The White House celebrated the agreement. "We believe that missile defense is a susbstantial contribution to NATO's collective security," presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

She said it was not an attempt to antagonize Russia, which opposes the missile defense system.

A Russian lawmaker, parliamentary foreign affairs committe chairman Konstantin Kosachev, warned that the deal would worsen tensions between Moscow and Washington, which already are being strained by Russia's military offensive in Georgia.

While Washington says the defense system is meant to guard Europe against missile-armed states like Iran, the Kremlin feels it is aimed at Russia's missile force, and Kosachev told the Interfax news agency the deal will spark "a real rise in tensions in Russian-American relations."

The United States has also reached an agreement with the Czech Republic's government to place a radar component of the missile defense system in that country. That deal still needs approval from the Czech parliament.

Talking about the "mutual commitment" part of the agreement, Tusk said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be too slow in coming to Poland's defense if Poland were threatened and that the bloc would take "days, weeks to start that machinery."

"Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later — it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of — knock on wood — any possible conflict," Tusk said.

"This is a step toward real security for Poland in the future," he added.

Poland and other former Soviet satellites and republics in eastern Europe have been unsettled by Russia's poweverful military incursion into Georgia.

The deal was reached after more than 18 months of back-and-forth, often terse, negotiations.

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Associated Press writer Foster Klug in Washington contributed to this report.

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Exactly as i predicted. The Georgian war will speed the former WP satellites in their rush to the US for defense. Indeed it already has.

[RWebb]

I guess Putin's secret plan to induce every country on his border to join NATO is working.

[Jim727]

Who can blame them - there's lots of history to draw on.

Problem is - the missile "shield" performs little useful work; it does, however, draw a line against the Russians. Poland gets tightly coupled to our fighting capacity, but I don't see what we're getting out of it.

Russia won't be amused. Some options:
1) They take it quietly. Not likely.
2) They take Poland. Not likely - WWIII
3) They do something equally provocative. Highly likely. My suspicion would be a public alliance with Iran. Controls lots of oil, tweaks the U.S. and creates real problems for us, gives Russia more warm-water access (through Georgia, yet), and further empowers Iran, substantially increases Russian influence in the mideast, etc., etc.

Meanwhile, we're bogged down in Iraq and it could get much uglier if a Russia/Iran alliance chooses to support the Iraqi "resistance" the way we did in Afghanistan.

All around bad move, imo.

[dipso]

They will probably just put some in Cuba.

MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Cuba are to make efforts to boost bilateral cooperation in all spheres, the Russian Security Council said on Friday.

Council chief Nikolai Patrushev and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin visited Cuba on July 30-31, in a trip focusing on projects to revive economic ties between the former Cold War allies, including Russian companies' participation in developing oil fields in the Latin American state.

"[Cuban President] Raul Castro, Patrushev and Sechin said at a meeting that their countries' were set to make consistent efforts to restore longtime ties in all spheres of cooperation and to expand and strengthen them," the Security Council said in a statement.

Sechin earlier cited oil production, tourism, healthcare, nickel production, telecommunications and nanotechnology as the most promising spheres for cooperation between the two countries.

Russia issued a $355 million loan for the purchase of vehicles and the financing of energy infrastructure in Cuba in 2006, reviving ties that had been weakened by the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Havana also committed itself to buying three Il-96-300 planes and three Tu-204 passenger medium-haul aircraft.

The visit of Patrushev and Sechin came after media reports said Russia could place an orbital ballistic missile system in Cuba in response to U.S. missile defense plans for Central Europe.

In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to the brink of war when Soviet missiles were stationed in Cuba.

The crisis was resolved after 12 days when the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, backed down and ordered the missiles removed.

[Normy]

Good.

The Polish and the Czechs need these missles to defend themselves. OUR military is stretched way too thin right now fighting dubya's war in Iraq to come to anyone's aid. Hence Putin's little foray into Georgia.

And McSame wants to extend our commitment to Iraq for another 100 years....

mm Hmm.

N!

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I dunno, our troops could use a break from the heat. Let's send them to the steppes....

[jyl]

Originally Posted by RWebb

I guess Putin's secret plan to induce every country on his border to join NATO is working.

Poland is already in NATO.

[m21sniper]

And now they have their own independent alliance with the USA (which the Poles demanded), and batteries of state of the art Patriot missiles.

Russia would invade China before they would attack Poland now.

[mikester]

It is just me or does this not look like Gorbachev?




Reference photo from the glory days...

[RWebb]

understood John - but with an incentive like this everybody will want in

gosh i just quake in my bootys when i think about those 2 nano-tech powerhouses gettin together...

[David]

I predict this will turn into a surface-to-air missle race.

I can't see us attacking Cuba or Venezuela so I don't see this as a huge problem, but we should probably all buy stock in the company that's on the leading edge of US made SAM's!

It could make getting into Iran difficult for Israel, but that's what cruise missles are for

[Mule]

Bush punks Putin!
Whoops up side yo head
I said whoops up side you head

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by 125shifter

I predict this will turn into a surface-to-air missle race.

I can't see us attacking Cuba or Venezuela so I don't see this as a huge problem, but we should probably all buy stock in the company that's on the leading edge of US made SAM's!

Raytheon.