Why US missiles in Romania?

Posted by Georgi Gotev on 05/02/10

President Traian Basescu announced on 4 February that Romania’s Supreme Defence Council had accepted an invitation from US President Obama to host an anti-missile shield.

I am not an arms expert, but I expect Russia to react strongly. It appears as if the US insists deploying missiles as close to Russia as possible.

As a native of the region, I’m not happy with this development. I see my Romanian friends, in general, as more enthusiastic, when it comes to strategic military projects. I also notice that the Romanian opposition supports the idea. The US always chooses countries where there is national consensus for getting involved with such projects.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m suspicious at anything that could bring back a Cold war climate, to the region and to Europe. By the way, I wonder what the new streamlined and coherent European External Action Service would have to say about it.

Anyway…  Even if the project of hosting missiles in Romania is ‘good’, it was very poorly communicated so far.

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2 Responses to Why US missiles in Romania? »»

  1. Florian Pantazi
    Comment by Florian Pantazi | 2010/02/08 at 09:50:10

    …and right you are, Georgi, to be pessimistic about this new development. The truth of the matter is that the US is treating the countries of “New Europe” (which also happen to be new EU members) as satellites, rather than as NATO allies. How can we explain otherwise the fact that Poland, Romania and Lithuania have hosted CIA secret interrogation centres ? In time, the new Europeans will realise that towing the US line in international affairs is counterproductive and harms their national sovereignty in ways that membership of the EU does not. By following this path, politicians in the region are running the danger of being at odds with their partners in the Union, with all the unwelcome consequences – economic, political, military and geostrategic.

  2. Claus Eric Hamle
    Comment by Claus Eric Hamle | 2010/02/21 at 20:23:10

    According to former Trident missile engineer Bob Aldridge-www.plrc.org-the Pentagon aims to achieve a disarming and unanswerable first-strike capability. Minuteman-3 and Trident-2 D5 linked to GPS obtain a CEP (Circular Error Probability – - the radius centered on the target in which half the warheads are expected to hit) of 30 meters or less, enough to destroy any hard target. And according to Bob Aldridge the US Navy can track and destroy all enemy submarines simultaneously. Please see Robert C. Aldridge: Nuclear Empire, ch. 9. Even if the Pentagon´s First-Strike Capability is only for blackmail, the Russians may have no choice but implementing Launch On Warning. Bob Aldridge resigned because a disarming and unanswerable first-strike capability is suicidal.
    I hope you agree that the Pentagon´s First-Strike Capability is the most urgent problem because it inevitably leads to Launch On Warning.
    The missiles to be deployed in Romania and Poland and on ships in the Black Sea in Bulgaria by 2015 are a necessary component of an unanswerable first strike force – - to shoot down surviving Russian missiles which are launched in retaliation, according to Bob Aldridge.


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