MISSILE DEFENSE PROGRESS IN PRAGUE...
In mid-July, a delegation of officials from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency traveled to the Czech Republic. The goal of their visit? To examine three potential locations that could be suitable for the Bush administration's planned European missile defense basing site. Assessment of the bases - in Libava, North Moravia, Brdy, Central Bohemia, and Boletice, South Bohemia, respectively - are part of "the last stage in expert negotiations" between Washington and Prague over the Eastern European state's suitability as a base for American anti-missile capabilities, the Agence France Presse (July 18) reports.
Not surprisingly, the visit has ignited a heated domestic debate in the Czech Republic over the prudence of missile defense cooperation with the U.S. "As members of NATO we are an ally and a friend of the United States, which ensures our security," defense expert Tomas Klvana wrote in the July 14th issue of Prospekt. Missile defense is therefore "an issue of our security, prosperity, health, and the health of our economy, which is undergoing a historic boom now." Others, however, are not so sure. "As soon as such establishments are built, the given country becomes a first-degree target in the case of a real missile war," a parallel commentary in the same issue of the Prague political weekly warns. "[C]urrently there is no such target in the territory of the Czech Republic. However, if an anti-missile systems base was to be built here, then everything would be fundamentally changed."
...AND NEW INROADS IN ITALY...
The Bush administration is also making missile defense progress elsewhere in Europe. Inside Missile Defense (July 19) reports that the United States and Italy could soon sign a framework agreement expanding missile defense cooperation between the two countries. The deal, which Pentagon officials say will be "similar" to missile defense agreements the U.S. has signed with other partner nations, may materialize as early as this fall. The United States already has memorandums of understanding on missile defense with Australia, Denmark and Japan.
...RATTLE RUSSIA
If the United States moves ahead with plans for a missile defense basing site in Europe, Russia will be forced to take serious countermeasures, a top Russian military expert has warned. An American decision to deploy defenses in Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary will force Moscow to take "appropriate countermeasures, and neutralize these systems in order to preserve its nuclear missile deterrence potential," the Interfax news agency (July 19) cites Col.-Gen. Nikolai Yesin, the former chief-of-staff of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, as saying.
IN BEIJING, AN EMERGING SPACE STRATEGY
China's military has increasingly begun eyeing space as a critical theater for military operations. "Our military should not only protect China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, but should also protect the oceans and transport routes and other economic interests as well as ... the security of space," an analysis by researchers from the PRC's National Defense University published in the official People's Daily on August 2nd has asserted. According to the Agence France Presse (August 3), the assessment follows a July article in the Chinese Communist Party Central Party School's paper, the Study Times, which similarly advocated the development of "coordinated land, sea, air, and space systems."
TAKING STOCK IN SEOUL
Publicly, the South Korean government may still be committed to its conciliatory "Sunshine" policy toward the DPRK. But North Korea's brazen July 4th missile tests have clearly rattled officials in Seoul. The Korea Times (July 17) reports that the South Korean government is now planning to establish a dedicated missile defense command in its armed forces later this year. According to the paper, the anti-missile unit will be established in September or October as part of a "military overhaul plan" now underway in Seoul.
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