Missile defense and rising global tensions: the web of relations between Iran, Russia, and the United States.

Rooney, John Jack

When Barack Obama was sworn in with the solemn oath of the US presidency, he was given a rude awakening to the gravity of his new job courtesy of Russian President Dimitri Medvedev's address to the Russian Parliament. The first day after Obama's historic inauguration, Russia declared it was positioning Iskander missiles in the western enclave of Kaliningrad in response to planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, marking the first time since the Cold War that Russia had threatened the West with aggressive military action.

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Not an entirely isolated incident, a resurgent Russia fueled by booming oil revenues has led to a more assertive foreign policy from the Kremlin, epitomized by last August's military incursion into Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. With US-Russian relations deteriorating significantly during the tenure of the Bush administration, it should have come as no surprise to the new US president that Moscow would test him early on. Such aggressive measures, nonetheless, were alarming. When President Obama took office, US relations with Russia were at their lowest point since the collapse of arms control negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986. At the center of these hostilities lies the X-Band radar and the silo-based interceptor missiles, with the implications of its construction reaching well beyond Central Europe to a new global power struggle.

Undoubtedly, tensions between the two nations have built up over time, however, the missile defense installations scheduled for construction in Poland and the Czech Republic seem to present a threat that Russia can not leave unanswered. Despite assurances from the US that the European missile systems are strictly defensive in nature and designed to protect from an Iranian ballistic missile, Russia has nonetheless regarded such deployments as urgent threats that demand aggressive actions. Certainly Moscow was uncomfortable with NATO expansion steadily moving to its front door, but the Kremlin's heated rhetoric seems to suggest that there is more than meets the eye with these missile defense systems, and that the US is not telling the whole truth of the matter.

According to the United States Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the goal of the system is "to defend US allies and deployed forces in Europe from limited Iranian long-range threats" with the breadth of the shield covering all of Europe except for portions of Southeast Europe like Turkey, Romania, and Greece. Currently, however, the most advanced Iranian ballistic missile capabilities only reach a distance of about 2000 kilometers. Thus, the only countries in range of an Iranian missile are the exact same countries which are not protected by the missile defense shield. This begs the question, what exactly is the missile shield designed to do, especially given the unlikeliness of an Iranian missile attack of Europe anyways.

In a quite revealing interview with independent defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer conducted by Bernard Gwertzman for the US Council on Foreign Relations, speculation surrounds whether missile defense is actually directed towards Russia rather than Iran. When asked about Moscow's concerns over the installations planned for Poland and the Czech Republic, Felgenhauer responded that "the Russian military says that these missiles will be nuclear-armed [and that] the American notion of non-nuclear warheads, 'bullets hitting bullets,' is a smokescreen." As he explains further, nuclear warheads can be used to destroy an incoming missile due to the breadth of their blast; pinpoint accuracy is no longer a necessity.

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As Felgenhauer goes on to say, the implications of such forward-based nuclear missiles are exactly what has provoked such extreme measures and heated rhetoric from Moscow. Painting the missile shield as more of a deterrent than a defense, Felgenhauer goes on to say that the Russian military believes "that nuclear missiles will be deployed in Poland near Russia and these nuclear missiles will have also a first-strike capability and could hit Moscow before [Russia's response] could get airborne, [thus seeming] not so much as missile defense as a deployment of first-strike capability." While the Congressional Budget Report on the system accounts for the deployment of a battery of ten Patriot Advanced-Capability 3 (PAC-3) missiles, if relations between the two nuclear powers continue to deteriorate, having permanent installations certainly allows for additional deployments, not excluding nuclear-armed warheads. Such a threat gives the US significant leverage in the relationship, but since Barack Obama is not a hawkish military proponent like his predecessor: why continue with the system?

Only a few weeks ago, President Obama, after meeting with President Medvedev just days before in London, stood firm at the gates of Prague castle and declared that "as long as a threat from Iran persists, [the US] will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven." While the missile defense shield may not directly diffuse an Iranian missile by shooting it down, Obama seems to be exercising some clever diplomacy by going straight to the root of the issue--the funding and development of Iran's nuclear ambitions. By strong-arming Russia with the threat of first-strike nuclear capabilities, Obama may be using missile defense to shoot down Iran's military threats after all.

It's no secret that Iran and Russia maintain ever-increasing economic and military cooperation with "the value of arms transfer agreements between [them increasing] from $300 million between 1998 and 2001 to $1.7 billion between 2002 and 2005." Many Russian defense companies compete for contracts with Iran, and it is often the case that Iranian delegations will meet with Russian weapons producers and manufacturers with historical impunity from US sanctions. The truth of the matter is that for these sanctions to be effective, a significant relationship with a US counterpart must exist, but most of these Russian weapons exporters have never partnered with US companies, let alone formed contracts with them.

Really it was not until mid-2006 that the US gained ground by targeting two of the largest Russian military enterprises--the state-owned weapons exporter Rosoboronexport and Sukhoi, a producer of world-famous fighter aircraft. According to a 2006 CSIS report, "Sukhoi has a subsidiary that carries out Russia's largest civil aircraft development project with the participation of several US partners, and Rosoboronexport recently acquired a titanium producer with sizeable sales in the United States." Because of their exposure to sanctions, the US has been able to conduct some influence over their cooperation with Iran, particularly in two military contracts crucial to Iran's nuclear program: the delivery of S-300 air defense systems and the construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactor.

First, the delivery of S-300s, possibly the most advanced anti-aircraft systems in the world, became a particularly controversial topic as Israel promised to execute strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities before the S-300s could be delivered. While Russia reportedly agreed to send the advanced defense systems to Iran under a 2007 contract, delivery has been stalled, temporarily quelling Israel's boiling tone. In fact, recent reports have indicated that Russia and Israel reached an agreement in which unmanned drones would be supplied to Russia in exchange for nullifying the S-300 contract.

It should be no surprise, however, that Russia offered to sell S-300s to Iran given their certain purpose was to defend Iran's nuclear facilities like the Bushehr reactor, which was constructed by Russian contractors and employs thousands of Russians domestically and abroad. In a dense network of Russian-Iranian partnerships, Russian contractors strongly facilitate the development of Iran's military capabilities, the development of their enormous oil and gas reserves, and the development of their budding nuclear program. When Obama puts pressure on Russia via the missile defense shield, it is this network of partnerships that is in his cross hairs.

And yet, Iran's nuclear program continues to develop, now with over 6,000 centrifuges fully operational, which is roughly enough to make about two nuclear bombs each year. Pressuring Russia and other facilitators of Iran's nuclear program has only gone so far, and yet, the problem of Iran's continued enrichment still remains. Engaging Iran with direct diplomatic talks without preconditions is the right path, however, while Iran prepares for national elections, the Obama administration must be patient and garner the trust of the international community.

If Obama is able to convince the large facilitators of Iran's nuclear development such as Russia and China that it is in their best interest to increase pressure on Iran, his new path to diplomacy may very well bear fruit. While an unstable Middle East poses grave threats to global stability, cooperation from these powers has been difficult to achieve. Underlying these tensions is a vision expressed by Iran, Russia, and China of a "multipolar world" in which US power is reduced and kept in check.

Vladimir Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg economic forum in June 2007 exemplifies how global institutions are becoming strained under increasing pressure to preserve a world order that may very well deny preservation. The missile defense shield and the attempt to limit Iran's nuclear program may very well be in vain as the rise of this "mutipolar" world looks more certain. It is yet known whether Obama will adapt with concessions or if his steadfast stance, as displayed here is Prague, proves to be the right one.

SUGGESTED READING

Fayazmanesh, Sasan. The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment. (Routledge, 2008).

Heurlin, Bertel, Sten Rynning. Missile Defence: International, Regional and National Implications. (Routledge, 2005).

Shaffer, Brenda. Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).

John Jack Rooney is an American writer living and working in Prague. He is the co-creator and writer for the Internet website, Prague.dj.