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The Big Chill
Events over the weekend have brought a distinct Cold War chill to international relations. On Thursday, western governments claimed that China's Peoples Liberation Army had blasted an ageing weather satellite out of the sky with a missile - the first such test by any nation to date. China's action left even its own diplomats lost for words and drew criticism that Beijing risked opening new Star Wars arms race.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Russia complained that the planned US anti-missile radar base in the Czech Republic will make Moscow 'rethink its defence strategy.'
China's test will cause the most immediate concern. While it must be stressed that the test has not been confirmed by China and that Moscow has cast doubts on western claims, the US, Canada and Australia have all claimed it happened on January 11.
Beijing has pressured Washington for years to work towards making space a "no-go zone" for defence initiatives, and some commentators, including Rosemary Righter in The Times, argue that China's diplomats themselves would have been wrong-footed by the test, directed by the worryingly independent People's Liberation Army (PLA). Who really sets policy in China, she wonders - it is clearly true that many still see power as growing from the barrel of a gun.
The US, as might be expected, signalled it was unhappy with the launch, which risks stoking up a new arms race between Washington and Beijing.
"The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," U.S. national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
The Guardian, in its leader column, expresses some concerns about China's test but adds that criticism from the US is a bit rich, considering that Washington "has poured billions of dollars into (National Missile Defence) and research on space-borne weapons, defying the warnings that it was jeopardising decades of negotiation on limiting the size and scope of ballistic missile systems."
(Incidentally, the readers comments after this lead article, where vast majority of contributors cheer on China's challenge to the US and even pray for the arrival of Iranian nuclear weapons, to "contain" "Anglo-American aggression", are perhaps the most insane remarks EURSOC has ever come across in the admittedly target-rich territory of the Guardian's comments pages).
Still, to paraphrase Orwell, something that appears in the Guardian can still be true. Beijing will probably argue that a land-based missile that can take out satellites is not a space weapon, but a surface one with extended range. Nations complain about the militarisation of space, but military satellites are an accepted part of pretty much every nation's strategy and arsenal: If, in the case of war, these are used for targeting enemy weapons, is it not desirable to shoot them down?
Meanwhile in Europe, the government of the Czech Republic has announced that it will host the European radar element of the US's anti-missile shield, prompting mutterings of outrage from Moscow. Poland is said to be ready to accept the missile base.
The US and its allies argue the base is to protect against long-range missiles from Iran and North Korea (for example); Russia says that setting up such a base in what it still fancies as its backyard is an act of Cold War aggression that will force it to "re-assess" its own defence strategy. North Korea and Iran don't even have intercontinental ballistic missiles, complains Nikolai Solovtsov, Moscow's top missile man. "Yet," Washington might retort.
The Guardian reports that "up to two thirds" of Czechs and Poles (the other proposed base site) oppose the bases. Poland's President has expressed concerns over Pentagon demands that the bases, which will hold around 500 men and women, should be under US law.
Opposition to the base elsewhere in Europe has been surprisingly muted. Under current circumstances, few western nations would feel ready to host a US missile or radar base, still less an extra-territorial one. Perhaps as the Czech PM Mirek Topolanek says, there is an acceptance that it will contribute to the safety of the region.
Besides, Moscow's complaints will find little sympathy in Europe's ministries. Russia's favoured means of winning influence these days is to indicate how its paw rests on the oil and gas pipelines feeding much of Europe. As winter finally arrives to Western Europe this week, some will ruefully joke that this time, Russia has the potential to make the Cold War really cold.
