From Russia, With Love

My last name comes from the defunct state of Prussia. Its old capital, Konigsberg—renamed Kaliningrad by the Russians—seldom makes the news for much of anything. That changed, at least temporarily, when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the day after Barack Obama’s election to the White House that Russia would place missiles in Kaliningrad in response to a Bush administration project, a planned missile shield in Poland.

Medvedev’s position on this missile-shield standoff has been deliberately provocative. That posturing worked: many in America have argued that the United States should not allow this development to threaten diplomatic relations by upsetting the Russians. These arguments, however, seems to want it both ways—they insist that the United States can neither back down and seem weak, nor prioritize a controversial missile shield over calm negotiation. Diplomacy can often work, and President-elect Obama will hopefully engage more countries in level dialogue than his predecessor. The Russians, however, constitute a special case. It is imperative that Obama continue the strong stand taken yesterday by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and refuse to capitulate on this issue.

Medvedev’s obvious political statement, timing his announcement for the day after the U.S. presidential elections, should make it clear enough that he is not one to concede much through back-room dealing. His argument justifying the move, moreover, has no rational grounds in a post-Cold War Europe. A missile shield in Poland would not endanger Russia in any way. To believe it could, one would have to assume that Russia’s safety presently depends on its capacity for nuclear deterrence against a possible strike from a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member or another European state.

There is little legitimacy to Russia’s justification for their behavior. I, for one, did not realize that they faced such a military threat from NATO and the European Union. Moreover, I sincerely doubt the Russians’ suspicion that the defense shield’s stated intention of intercepting missiles coming from the Middle East is simply a pretense to encroach upon their territory.

The BBC reports that Russia’s threat of gathering offensive firepower in Kaliningad is highly unrealistic, citing military analysts in Moscow who suggest that Russia’s Iskander missiles are currently all deployed on the Georgian border and that the production and installation of missiles in Kaliningrad would take considerable time. Medvedev’s declaration can only be understood as a symbolic challenge to Barack Obama. Polish President Lech Kaczynski didn’t make things any easier when he claimed last week that Obama hoped the shield project would continue and forced him to issue a non-committal denial.

Kacynski’s office has since backtracked, and his remarks seem based on impulse. Obama, however, must not act hastily, and must evaluate the project from a balanced perspective. To reject the shield’s installation simply because of Russia’s posturing and a desire to seem diplomatic would appear as a critical sign of weakness to his counterpart in Moscow.

Medvedev has placed Obama in a difficult position before he has even taken office, but our President-elect now has a crucial opportunity to emerge strong. Though the shield was a brainchild of the Bush administration, it should not be thrown out with the bathwater. The Russians, meanwhile, need to be called out on their ridiculous gambit. Medvedev cannot realistically be prepared to attack Europe, with Russia’s recent economic slide and much of its revenue coming from oil sales to the very countries it now claims it will threaten. Obama will have many chances to improve on the Bush administration’s record in his willingness to use diplomacy instead of resorting to force. His interactions with Russia, however, will have to be characterized by firmness and a willingness to stand up to growing displays of aggression.

In this moment of transition and of heightening geopolitical struggle, it is hardly the time for soft diplomacy. Obama, like the European Union, should join Secretary Gates in calling Medvedev on a preposterous bluff.


Alexander R. Konrad ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a history concentrator in Quincy House.