U.S./NATO militarism expands

On Sept. 17, when President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the U.S. was canceling plans to station 10 ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a missile radar installation in the Czech Republic, it was no cause for elation. The NATO presence in Eastern Europe is continuing to expand to protect imperial ambitions and military profits.

Any allegations that the U.S. government is bowing to Russian opposition to the U.S./NATO military encirclement of Russia are lies. The U.S. is “strengthening—not scrapping—missile defense in Europe,” said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. He added that a “fixed radar site like the one previously envisioned for the Czech Republic would be far less adaptable than the airborne, space- and ground-based sensors we now plan to use.” (New York Times, Sept. 18)

Czech and Polish responses

Seventy percent of the people of the Czech Republic oppose the construction of the radar bases in their country. (Czech News Agency, April 16). Most Czechs have no wish to be in the center of a theater of war between the U.S. and its NATO allies and Russia.

The costs of military buildup have impoverished a population that once enjoyed free health care, education and a rich cultural life—when Czechoslovakia was part of the socialist camp. The Czechs are reeling from the devastation of privatization and the disappearance of social services. Their GDP has dropped five percent while unemployment is expected to top ten percent soon. The crisis has allowed more cuts to be made in public budget expenditures. (Czech press survey, Sept. 7)

NATO was planning to build ten missile silos in Redzikowo, Poland. The decision to scrap the bases was greeted with relief. People feared the fact that Russian rockets would be one minute away.

In nearby Slupsk, where unemployment is higher than the national average of 11 percent, some hoped the missile base would help the local economy. (Warsaw Business Journal, April 20, 2009) The global recession has hit Poland hard. Unemployment is expected to increase to 12.5 percent by December. (Forbes, Sept. 7)

Poland is already the site of the largest volume of NATO investment in the world. (Warsaw Business Journal, April 20) Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that the U.S. has promised that Poland will be invited to host an element of a new missile defense system. (Xinhua, Sept. 18).

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars system is not dead. Since 1985, the U.S. has spent or earmarked more than $124 billion on the Missile Defense scheme. Nearly $8 billion has been approved for next year.

The Pentagon has been installing worldwide missile-tracking radar facilities all around the globe. On land and sea, a huge variety of expensive and unnecessary missiles threaten Russia, Iran, China and North Korea.

NATO countries account for 70 percent of worldwide military spending (CIA World Factbook 2008), a drain on all except the military corporation profiteers. Only working-class resistance can challenge the double threat of militarism and recession.