Round and Round We Go
Part of the perverse logic of conservative foreign policy founded on a bizarre combination of hysteria and hubris is that there’s this kind of quicksand phenomenon where the worse things get, the more you need to keep flailing. I think that’s the best way in which to understand this miasma of strategic confusion from Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. As expected, it’s riddled with contradictions. Russia is simultaneously powerful enough to mount “a challenge to the political order and values at the heart of the continent” (i.e., Europe) but also so pathetic that an approach to Russia based on hollow sloganeering about “solidarity with the people of Georgia” will be sufficient to turn back the challenge. They call vaguely for “an alliance can frustrate these designs and diminish our dependence on the foreign oil that is responsible for the higher energy prices here at home” but propose no concrete steps to reduce oil dependence. And their only tangible policy proposal is a bunch of missile defense nonsense:
The U.S. must also reaffirm its commitment to allies that have been the targets of Russian bullying because of their willingness to work with Washington. The recent missile-defense agreement between Poland and the U.S., for instance, is not aimed at Russia. But this has not stopped senior Russian officials from speaking openly about military retaliation against Warsaw. Irrespective of our political differences over missile defense, Democrats and Republicans should join together in Congress to pledge solidarity with Poland, along with the Czech Republic, against these outrageous Russian threats.
It would be nice if we could stop bullshitting around about this. From the beginning, the main international issue with the missile defense program has been that Russia views it as a means of undermining the credibility of their nuclear deterrent and rendering them available to American nuclear first strike. At the same time, the technology doesn’t work! And critics have long argued that it makes little sense to proceed with unworkable technology that promises to badly damage our relationship with Russia. And yet the missile defense proponents pressed on and now are shocked — shocked! — that Russia isn’t playing nice. At which point Poland, clearly as a move sponsored by a desire to spit at Russia because of Moscow’s bad behavior, signs on to the missile plan. So Russia gets mad. And this is further evidence of Russian perfidy.
Given that we have no way of forcibly dislodging Russia from Georgia, a person genuinely concerned with Georgia’s interests might see a bargaining opportunity. Here we have a missile defense program that terrifies the Russians, yet does us no good against the rogue states that are nominally its target. A deal could be struck here. A deal that would not only help secure our objectives in Georgia but would also allow the US-Russian bilateral relationship to refocus on vital issues of terrorism and nuclear proliferation rather than ethnic disputes in a remote mountain region.
But Graham and Lieberman don’t see it that way. Instead, given that the mutual cycle of hostile actions has thus far made Russia, the United States, and Georgia all worse off than we were before, the only reasonable course of action is to keep twirling ’round the downward spiral and just kind of hope that things start working out well. After all, if we do what they want then soon enough some Iran-related issue will show up at the UN Security Council, Russia won’t cooperate with us, and then Lieberman and Graham will claim “vindication” of their “prescient” views about the perfidy of Moscow. And then we can go around again.
58 Responses to “Round and Round We Go”
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August 27th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
It’s all about moral posturing. The point of the effort is to be able to pat yourself on the back for your “moral clarity” and your willingness to “call evil what it is”. The fact that everybody ends up in a materially worse situation at the end of it is irrelevant.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
As Joe Scarborough said, McCain’s campaign slogan should be “More wars, fewer jobs.”
It seems they’re really ginning this up, however. The number of Republican luminaries who visited Georgia recently — even in the leadup to initial Georgian actions in S. Ossetia, is pretty large (even Rove went, and various McCain and administration people).
And they’re keeping the trips going after Russia’s incursion, with even Cindy McCain being dispatched for some reason. Wonder what reason that is?
I think they are planning this to be a campaign theme.
To which I reply “More wars, fewer jobs.”
August 27th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
The Russian’s do not fear that it will undermine their nuclear deterrence. They fear two things:
1) Reagan used the US military buildup to help bankrupt the deteriorating Soviet economy. This leaves fears of a new US buildup causing damage to a still deeply flawed Russian economy.
2) Missile defense systems are primarily first strike weapons against small players. Russia does (and should) fear a US first strike capability against an Iran with a small number of nuclear weapons and rudimentary missile delivery systems. This is a basic balance of power issue in the Middle East.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Matt, clearly you underestimate what our infinite determination and steely will can do.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
omg, appeasement! matt, have you ever of munich, lol?
August 27th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
appeasement! matt, have you ever heard of munich, lol?
August 27th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
The fact that everybody ends up in a materially worse situation at the end of it is irrelevant.
I wouldn’t call winning elections, and with them the Justice Department, keeping one step ahead of the prosecutors, and out of a cell in the Hague thereby, ‘irrelevant’.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Here is one thing I have never understood about the critics of missile defense. If it terrifies Russia, then that must be because Russia thinks it will work, right? Russia would not be terrified of NMD if they were as sure it will fail as MY is. The whole point of missile defense seems to be to take away the ability of rogue states to use the missile threat card in a crisis. If the rogue states think, like Russia, that it will work, then NMD serves the purpose of deterrence, and the rogue missiles are rendered useless.
Of course, it may set off an arms race-then it may not work. All of these are perfectly good reasons not to pursue NMD. But you can not really argue both that it will not work and that it is useless, and that Russia is terrified of it. Russia would not be terrified of it if they thought it will not work and is useless.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
With you Matt, but I do have a question:
If Star Wars doesn’t work, why does Russia give a damn?
August 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Kind of blows my mind to consider that if not for the Supreme Court 5’s interference in favor of Bush, Lieberman could very well be the sitting VP right now. Or, to continue this hypothetical further, if the 9/11 attacks had still succeeded (despite greater focus on the Al Qaeda threat from the Gore administration), would Lieberman’s foreign policy belligerence have led to a split with Gore?
Then again, in terms of foreign policy, how different is Lieberman from Cheney?
August 27th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Because conservative foreign policy thrives on the disasters and threats created by conservative foreign policy, it doesn’t need to work as foreign policy, only as polemic for domestic consumption.
All alternatives, furthermore, are “appeasement” and “surrender” until a Republican wants to choose them.
.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
It’s all about moral posturing. The point of the effort is to be able to pat yourself on the back for your “moral clarity” and your willingness to “call evil what it is”.
“Posturing” is the correct word, particularly when the lobbyists that run McCain’s campaign have an interest in keeping business going with the countries that are supposed to be America’s enemies. McCain himself voted to keep the money flowing to supposed rogue nations. Read all about it.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
LorenzoStDuBois: “If Star Wars doesn’t work, why does Russia give a damn?”
I’m not willing to stake an American city on the chance that national missile defense will ever work, but Russia might not be willing to stake any of its cities on the chance that national missile defense will never work. They’re trying to keep us from getting our foot in the door.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
What if Russia was putting its own ABM in, say, Cuba? Or China putting its missles in Canada?
Also, from Russia’s perspective, how can they really be sure that the missles that are being installed in Poland are purely defensive in nature?
And another thing - geographically speaking Poland does seem an odd location for missles designed to intercept something coming from Iran.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Matt writes:
I think this is mistaken. The main issue with the missile defense program is that, based as it is on the premise that it is possible to defend against a nuclear attack, it reifies the notion that nuclear war is a practical thing to consider. Einstein was right all those years ago when he said that the splitting of the atom had changed everything except our mode of thinking. “Thus,” he said, “we drift toward unlimited catastrophe.” We always need to keep in mind that nuclear weapons are unlike other weapons in really important ways.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Great analysis, Matt. I agree.
I have been to Moscow twice in recent months. Some officials there are using the issue for their own purposes, but many that I have known for years see this as a genuine threat. Most worry that this would just be the beginning of serious US military deployments on their border.
Others say they must evaluate capabilities, not US intentions. The interceptors may not have much value against the hypothetical long-range Iran missile, but this defensive system could have an offensive use. Russians say the interceptors could be armed with nuclear warheads and used in a classic first-strike scenario to blind Russian defenses with an EMP burst. They wouldn’t even see it coming.
I do not believe this is the purpose at all, but Russians don’t trust us. We blew it when Bush spurned Putin’s offer to use the Azerbaijan radar and develop a joint system. Sure it is not as good as ours, but the geopolitical signal to Iran would have been powerful…and it would have cemented US-Russian cooperation. Instead, US-Russian relations are the worst they have been since before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I wrote some of this on The Huffington Post.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
LorenzoStDuBois: “If Star Wars doesn’t work, why does Russia give a damn?”
I suspect the fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union entered World War 2 because of a sneak attack has had a long-term consequence for both. The American/British/Japanese “invasion” at the time of the Russian Civil War wouldn’t exactly inspire trust. Going further, there is the Russo-Japanese War, which began with the Japanese Navy attacking the Russian Asiatic Fleet (and then sinking the bulk of the Baltic Fleet which had sailed around the world to do battle). Napoleon’s invasion would scarcely be called a surprise as his regiments were lining up for weeks, but distance and winter defeated him (the crossing of the Berezhina is somewhat astonishing considering the grand armee was in retreat). In the case of the US, Hawaii was far away and exotic, but was also the home of the bulk of the US Fleet (much of which had been transferred there in the late 30’s). It was a far more devastating loss than is often realized. In the years afterwards, both countries made an effort to assure it would not happen again.
I suspect all this is in play.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Russia hasn’t been helpful at the UN at all.
But Graham and Lieberman don’t see it that way. Instead, given that the mutual cycle of hostile actions has thus far made Russia, the United States, and Georgia all worse off than we were before, the only reasonable course of action is to keep twirling ’round the downward spiral and just kind of hope that things start working out well.
Arguably the first “hostile” action done by the US and Germany, etc. was the recognition of indepedent Kosovo. I think Russia was being paranoid and full of shit on this issue. Poor babies.
So, the second hostile action was Russia’s creeping annextion of the two disputed areas within UN member Georgia’s internationally recognized borders.
Georgia, realizing the West would do nothing about it, stupidly attacked. The third hostile action.
The fourth was Russia invading Georgia unilateraly without going to the UN. (why doesn’t the anti-war left complain about Russia acting unilaterally?)
The fifth hostile action was the missile deal with Poland and the US giving the finger to Russia.
What happens next? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/world/europe/28russia.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
“And in a move certain to anger Russia, Ukraine’s president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, said he would open negotiations with authorities in Moscow to raise the rent on the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, which is in Ukraine’s predominantly Russian province of Crimea. The United States is pursuing a delicate policy of delivering humanitarian aid on military transport planes and ships, to illustrate to the Russians they do not fully control Georgia’s airspace or coastline.”
And so it goes. Doesn’t look like the West is backing down.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
If it terrifies Russia, then that must be because Russia thinks it will work, right?
Not necessarily. If you put a badly-trained pitbull in the garden next door as an ‘thief defense system’, that doesn’t prevent the dog from savaging small children.
As MS says, they might not be fit for purpose, but they’re still missiles.
(I’d like to know who’s going to build the bases, since all of Poland’s builders have fucked off west.)
August 27th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
It’s really hard to describe just how amazingly dangerous neoconservatism is. It has no justification based on historical evidence or intellectual merit, it leads to conflict and war, yet it survives, mainly because belligerence and “toughness” on defense will frequently play well electorally.
I sometimes think it might take a major disaster resulting from neocon behavior for people to wake up, but then I recall that they’ll just use said disaster to “prove” that we need to be more warlike. “Round and round,” indeed. (sigh)
August 27th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
pseudonymous, should be ok as long as there isnt a need to screw in light bulbs.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Here is one thing I have never understood about the critics of missile defense. If it terrifies Russia, then that must be because Russia thinks it will work, right?
Because politicians never take advantage of a rhetorical opening…
August 27th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
“And another thing - geographically speaking Poland does seem an odd location for missles designed to intercept something coming from Iran.”
Umm, no. Get out your globe and a piece of string. Place one end of the string on Tehran, and the other end on Washington, DC. Now look at which countries the string crosses. Poland is, indeed, one of them. Believe it or not, missiles can cross the boundaries of flat maps. The North Pole is actually a point, not the straight line that the Mercator Projection would have you believe. The real problem here is that Iran isn’t even close to having a missile that can reach us.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I guess I should add that the string and globe method is somewhat flawed for determining missile trajectories due to the Coriolis Effect. But it’s a decent approximation. Much better than drawing a straight line on a flat map.
August 27th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I’ve never understood why, if missile defense were truly as impotent as skeptics claim, the Russians would be so pissed about it. Are they so delusional they have no ability to distinguish legitimate threats to bogus threats?
As technologies mature they get better, generally. I’ve always assumed that if missile defense were the crock Yglesias (and many other respectable people) says it is, it’s a good idea to pursue it anyway, because eventually it’ll work pretty well. The Russians seem to agree.
What am I missing here?
August 27th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
“At which point Poland, clearly as a move sponsored by a desire to spit at Russia because of Moscow’s bad behavior, signs on to the missile plan. So Russia gets mad. And this is further evidence of Russian perfidy. ”
Is this sarcasm? I would think Poland, clearly because they are afraid of Russian agression as recently exhibited in Georgia and as experienced by Poland in living memory, wants to take steps to be protected from Russian agression.
“From the beginning, the main international issue with the missile defense program has been that Russia views it as a means of undermining the credibility of their nuclear deterrent and rendering them available to American nuclear first strike. At the same time, the technology doesn’t work! And critics have long argued that it makes little sense to proceed with unworkable technology that promises to badly damage our relationship with Russia.”
This paragraph has serious problems. If it is going to “badly damage our relationship with Russia” that must be because the Russians believe it will or is soon likely to work. If it isn’t a deterrent, who cares? If it is a deterrent, umm having a deterrent against a nuclear strike is a rather good thing.
“What if Russia was putting its own ABM in, say, Cuba? Or China putting its missles in Canada?”
If Russia want to put together an anti-nuclear-missile system, by all means go for it. If we lived in a place where nuclear missiles couldn’t be shot at a city, I’d be freaking thrilled!
August 27th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
“Russia does (and should) fear a US first strike capability against an Iran with a small number of nuclear weapons and rudimentary missile delivery systems.”
Nonsense. Russia knows full well that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and their missile systems are far from being either capable of carrying warheads or being accurate enough to hit the target if they did. And the US knows it, too. The NMD are designed to be PAID FOR, and never used except as a stalking horse to get US military bases and more effective missile systems into other countries.
Neither is Russia “terrified” of the NMD. What they don’t want is the US pushing military bases and systems up to their borders. The Russians have been invaded numerous times and they don’t want potential enemies on their borders. This should be obvious. They simply see the NMD as the first step in placing more effective missile systems on their borders.
And as others have pointed out, the NMD missiles are still missiles. They don’t have to be “defensive” at all. What goes up comes down, and they can just as easily be programmed to come down on Moscow as to intercept an ICBM. Do you want Russian interceptor missiles in Cuba? Thought not.
The blindness of people in not realizing that ANY US military moves in Eastern Europe are a direct threat to Russia is amazing. The blind acceptance of US exceptionalism is stunning. The US can do anything it wants, and if anybody complains, it’s because the opponent is “imperalist”.
Peter K: “The fourth was Russia invading Georgia unilateraly without going to the UN.”
Russia went to the UN FIRST, you idiot. The US wasn’t interested because the neocons were committed to starting trouble there.
As for “Russia’s creeping annexation”, one might ask, as Putin did, what was the point of flooding Georgia with US and Israeli military supplies and advisers? Could it be to support Saakashvili’s stated intent to regain total control of those territories, by force if necessary? I think so! But of course, since it was Georgia that intended to annex those territories, that’s OK since they’re a “democratic” state. Yeah, right…
August 27th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
“The NMD are designed to be PAID FOR, and never used”
Ahh, we finally get to the real reason for the system. Rather than funnel money to the GOP by laundering it through the missile defense system, wouldn’t direct payments be cheaper?
August 27th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Yeah, it would, but they call those sorts of things bribes, which is considered tacky in a “democracy.”
Which of course is what makes the notion of a “democracy” a “bad joke”, as the Joker put it.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Re Pierre de Fermat
In the case of the US, Hawaii was far away and exotic, but was also the home of the bulk of the US Fleet (much of which had been transferred there in the late 30’s). It was a far more devastating loss than is often realized.
I would take considerable exception to Mr. de Fermats’ contention here. Actually, as Admiral Yamamoto himself admitted, the attack was a failure because it failed to take out any of the US aircraft carriers which were not in harbor at the time of the attack. The eight WW 1 battleships that were damaged or destroyed had very little fighting value, except for shore bombardment. The most serious damage done was the large number of aircraft that were destroyed on the ground. If the three carriers that were normally based in Pearl Harbor had been present and sunk, the battles of Guadalcanal and Midway would never have been fought and the Japanese would have occupied both places without opposition. It is even conceivable that the Japanese could have occupied the Hawaiian Islands had that occurred, which would have greatly extended the length of WW 2 as we would have had to concentrate all US forces in the Pacific to the neglect of the European theater. The development of the nuclear bomb would not have affected the issue at all as we would have had no base close enough to Japan to have used it in 1945.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
So, missile defense “doesn’t work” but Russia fears it, according to the expert blogger. Obviously Matthew Yglesias is saying that Russia is ridiculously stupid. Fascinating point.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Foolish boy. Have not the last 8 years taught you the folly of conducting foreign policy by listening to what your adversaries say, and then doing the opposite? Far,f ar, better to assess policies on their merits, which in this case, is none, since the missiles don’t work and piss off our neighbor to no benefit.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
So, missile defense “doesn’t work” but Russia fears it, according to the expert blogger. Obviously Matthew Yglesias is saying that Russia is ridiculously stupid. Fascinating point.
Work against what? The whole reason ABMs were took off the table in the first place is that it set’s up a godawful arms race. If they work, it means the other party needs to build more missles, so you need to build more ABMs (remember this downward spiral we started talking about?).
If it *does* works against your adversaries missles, it’s always going to be insanely cheaper to build missles to defeat ABM than it is to make ABMs to defeat the new missle techology. You can make the missle wobble pretty easily. You can build dummy missles to overwhelm the ABM, The dummy missles don’t cost a fraction of your ABM project.
It’s *stupid* and the ABM treaty was a damn rare piece of American Foreign policy that made a ton of sense.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
rea: Again, if Russia is so “pissed off” by our wasting money placing missiles that “don’t work” in these countries, one is forced to conclude that Russia is led by dangerously-insane idiots with brain damage. This would be good to know, if true, so feel free to confirm if that’s what you intend to say.
Ed: which part of that stuff you wrote resolves the whole missiles-don’t-work/Russia-fears-the-missiles thing? (Admittedly I got lost trying to wade through some of the creative grammar…)
August 27th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
When I said “make them wobble” it sort of leaves off an important point. The wobble defeats our current ABM project easily. A wobbling missle isn’t a feature in most cases, it’s a bug. Primitive missles do this, like say….Iran’s.
So either the thing is aimed at Russia or it’s just a sinkhole for money.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
The really smart politicians, and those behind them, know that you can never have too many enemies. Enemies are the key to acquiring and maintaining political power. In that light both Putin’s political forces and Conservatives here were huge winners in the Georgia dust up.
The dumber pols, Lieberman and most congress critters, have some sense that making enemies is good politics but they define themselves in terms of justices and morality so they convince themselves that they are fighting for those things. They are usefull idiots in other words. Of course the usefull idiots sometimes get the upper hand and that’s when mistakes are made, then the war starts.
War is the last best hope of the incompetent to order the unwilling to attempt the impossible.
William Eastlake ‘The Bamboo Bed’
August 27th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
which part of that stuff you wrote resolves the whole missiles-don’t-work/Russia-fears-the-missiles thing? (Admittedly I got lost trying to wade through some of the creative grammar…)
It probably revolves around your, binary, worldview that you don’t get it. Say it works 90% of the time vs. an RS-24. What that would mean is that to maintain a credible deterrent you need to increase RS-24 production by 90% for every ABM installation. Say it works 10% of the time, you need to increase your RS-24 by 10% to make up the gap.
Say you are a paranoid Russian asshole, in the same way you are a paranoid American asshole, do you believe that the Russian ABM is really a minimally effective pile of crap or do you assume the worst and demand an arsenal that makes an enemy first strike suicidal?
August 28th, 2008 at 2:47 am
For such anti-nuke missile weapons to work, they have to be placed pretty much literally on the doorstep of the launch site. Once a missile is launched and moves away from its launch site, the chances of hitting it go down drastically. The farther a missile moves, the worse the chances get. An anti-Iran system would likely be placed in Iraq or at least Turkey or Saudi Arabia. Putting them in Poland wouldn’t be that useful. As such, one must conclude that such plans are anti-Russian, not anti-Iranian, much like the whole idea of missile defense has often been aimed against Russia.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:16 am
And as others have pointed out, the NMD missiles are still missiles. They don’t have to be “defensive” at all. What goes up comes down, and they can just as easily be programmed to come down on Moscow as to intercept an ICBM.
Oh, Lord, Hack’s been at the antifreeze again…
August 28th, 2008 at 9:20 am
For such anti-nuke missile weapons to work, they have to be placed pretty much literally on the doorstep of the launch site… As such, one must conclude that such plans are anti-Russian, not anti-Iranian, much like the whole idea of missile defense has often been aimed against Russia.
True of boost-phase missiles. But:
It is true that Poland is near Russia. But - follow me closely here - Russia is very, very big. An interceptor in Poland is thousands of miles away from an ICBM launch in Novosibirsk or Perm or Tyuratam.
Here’s a map of the Russian ICBM fields. Note how big Russia is.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/facility/icbm/index.html
August 28th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
My translation of an excerpt from “Niedziela”, a catholic Polish weekly magazine, Aug 10 (published in another Polish weekly magazine, “Nie”).
August 28th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
the really obvious reason for the russians to care is that it puts u.s. missiles right next to their border. we say they’re defensive missiles but how could moscow verify this? nor could they keep them from being converted into offensive weapons without their knowledge. for that matter, how do we as citizens even verify that the “defensive” missiles are really defensive?
September 1st, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Again, the republicans are giving the people a sean hannity without the crisco!
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