By James M. Gomez and Katya Andrusz
March 2 (Bloomberg) — Eastern European governments that ran political risks to support former President George W. Bush’s security policies are now concerned that his successor, Barack Obama, will backtrack on those regional commitments.
Leaders in the Czech Republic, Poland and other former communist nations face a backlash at home over their support of Bush-era initiatives, including the proposed U.S. missile- defense system and troop participation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, concern is growing in eastern Europe that it will be put on “the back burner” as the Obama administration talks about working with Russia and western Europe on issues such as Iran, says Annette Heuser, executive director of the Bertelsmann Foundation, a policy group in Washington.
Obama, 47, will have a chance to personally assuage concerns next month. After ignoring pleas from the east on his trip to Berlin, Paris and London as candidate last year, he will make his first visit there as president on April 5, Czech Premier Mirek Topolanek said yesterday. The president will travel to Prague to meet with European Union leaders, Topolanek said; the Czech Republic currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
While it’s too early to say what the president’s overall foreign policy will be, “we can see that Obama wants better relations with Russia and that he’s skeptical about missile defense,” says Jaroslaw Walesa, a lawmaker in Poland’s ruling Citizens’ Platform party and the son of the country’s first post-communist president, Lech Walesa.
Eastern Europe’s Angst
Eastern Europe’s angst over U.S. priorities stands in stark contrast to just a few years ago, when Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lauded the former communist states of what he called “New Europe” for their willingness to commit troops to the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003, while “Old Europe” nations including Germany and France refused.
Concern is particularly acute now because of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent muscle-flexing, including last year’s war in Georgia and this year’s natural-gas dispute with Ukraine.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Feb. 25 in Washington, where they confirmed an agreement that the U.S. would put Patriot missiles in Poland even if the missile-defense system — the U.S. portion of which would cost $37.3 billion — isn’t built.
Clinton’s Trip
Clinton, 61, this week makes her first trip to Europe. In Geneva, she sees Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who probably will express concern that the anti-missile system and the Patriot installation threaten his country’s security. She will also attend a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers, including those from nine former Soviet satellites.
Any feelings of neglect will add to the economic pain the region is undergoing. Eastern Europe will slide into a recession this year as export demand collapses, with its economies shrinking 0.4 percent, the International Monetary Fund said in January.
“We’re spending a lot of time right now looking at the economic challenges,” says Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg. Discussions on ways “to make sure that these rather fragile economies are not destabilized by the economic crisis” are ongoing. The IMF has already bailed out Latvia, Hungary, Serbia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia is exerting its own economic influence. It promised to lend Belarus $2 billion in November to bolster its economy and has already paid out the first half, Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin said on Jan. 24.
Aid and Afghanistan
President Dmitry Medvedev said on Feb. 3 that Russia would lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion and provide $150 million more in economic aid. The same day, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev told the U.S. to remove its military aircraft and personnel from a base used to stage military strikes in Afghanistan, citing a failure to renegotiate the amount paid for the facility.
Economic and security issues remain deeply intertwined throughout the region. Two decades after they began throwing off the yoke of the Soviet Union, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria are all in the EU and NATO. So are the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia.
The anti-missile system remains a flashpoint. The Ground- based Midcourse Defense system would be a network of interceptor missiles linked by satellites, radar and communications equipment. Chicago-based Boeing Co. is the prime contractor, while Northrop Grumman Corp., Raytheon Co. and Orbital Sciences Corp. are to be the top subcontractors.
Rogue States
The Bush administration said the U.S. defense system would detect and destroy rockets fired from “rogue” states including Iran and North Korea. Under its plan, the radar component would be based in the Czech Republic and the interceptor missile battery in Poland.
The plan contributed to Russia’s decision in 2007 to suspend its participation in a 1990 treaty that controls levels of conventional arms in Europe. It also has triggered fierce opposition in the countries where it is to be based.
Final approval for the Czech radar, to be located an hour outside of Prague, is foundering in parliament as Topolanek’s minority government is pummeled by the opposition. Polls show 65 percent of Czechs are against it; mayors from 130 Czech cities and towns organized a bus trip to Brussels on Feb. 17 to demonstrate against it, describing the Polish and Czech agreements as a “U.S. Trojan horse to divide Europe.”
Less Opposition
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk faces less opposition to his country’s part in the system. Still, his decision to send 1,600 troops to Afghanistan after Poland contributed 2,500 soldiers to Iraq runs counter to Poles’ desire for a quid pro quo, says Krzysztof Bobinski, the president of Unia & Polska, a political research foundation.
The Obama administration hasn’t hidden its skepticism about the missile system, a stance Putin, 56, said in a Jan. 26 Bloomberg Television interview that “we welcome.” Medvedev, 43, told Spanish media that he hopes to hear “specific proposals” from Obama about the shield, which he described as “irrelevant” and “annoying,” according to a transcript of the interview posted on the Kremlin Web site yesterday.
At last month’s Munich Security Conference, Vice President Joe Biden said the U.S. would only go ahead with the missile installations “provided the technology is proven and it is cost-effective.” Charles McQueary, director of Operational Test and Evaluation for the U.S. Defense Department, wrote in his annual report to Congress, released on Feb. 24, that he didn’t have “high confidence” the system would be effective against even a rudimentary North Korean missile.
Looking Beyond
Biden, in Munich, said any U.S. move to proceed with the system would be done “in consultation with you, our NATO allies, and with Russia.” Tusk and Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra appealed to the U.S. to keep Russia out of the decision; still, there are signs that the eastern Europeans may be prepared to look beyond the anti-missile system as long as the U.S. sticks by other security commitments.
“We’ve signed an agreement; we would prefer for it to go ahead,” Poland’s Sikorski said of the anti-missile system in a Feb. 25 interview. “But we’re not lobbyists for it. It’s a U.S. project, and a U.S. decision.”
And governments are as mindful of Obama’s popularity with their populaces as they are of the missile system’s unpopularity. A Dec. 1-8 survey by the STEM polling organization showed that 86 percent of Czechs were satisfied with the result of the U.S. election and believe that Obama will improve relations between the U.S. and Europe.
“There are many messages which are music to our ears,” says Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, citing “the willingness of the new administration to listen” and to “engage in communication and dialogue with everyone.”
As for the Bush administration’s legacy, Pawel Zalewski, an independent Polish lawmaker, says that “we never wanted to be labeled ‘New Europe.’ It has only brought us problems.”
To contact the reporters on this story: James M. Gomez in Prague at jagomez@bloomberg.net Katya Andrusz in Warsaw at kandrusz@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 1, 2009 18:00 EST
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