It’s not necessarily a missile shield like Bush proposed that Obama is supporting. For the time being, it appears that Russia’s protests to such a shield which would have been located in the Czech Republic, have worked and we are headed in a different direction. Obama just announced that we are now going to develop a mobile missile shield to protect against the many dangers of weapons in Iran. “Our new missile defense architecture in Europe will provide stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies.”
This decision to shy away from the original plan to house a missile shield in the Czech Republic has been harshly scrutinized by republicans. Republicans unanimously agree that Obama is appearing weak by simply appeasing Russia in their demands that we lose the missile shield in their backyard. My stance is that we did appear weak in this issue but it was something that needed to be done. Had we continued on the path of development for this shield, we might have alienated Russia, a powerful ally which we do not want as an enemy. We have faced Russia as an enemy once before and I would hope we never do this again.
Obama spun a positive twist on the new program stating, “This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.”
My opinion is that the new program will work but not as well as the original plan. However it is in our best interests because Russia is now grateful for our actions.
