Mooted US nuclear deal with Russia could spell end of radar base in Bohemia

The future of an American missile defence project that would include facilities in central Europe now seems to be in doubt. The new US administration is reportedly seeking a major nuclear weapons reduction deal with Russia in exchange for a review of the controversial plan. Moscow, strongly opposed to the project, has welcomed Washington’s new initiative.

The Czech government signed treaties with the United States last summer on hosting an American radar base in central Bohemia. But now it seems Prague could have spared itself the effort – the UK newspaper the Times reported on Wednesday that President Barack Obama may engage Moscow in a historic nuclear non-proliferation treaty which could reduce both countries’ nuclear stockpiles by 80 percent. In return, the US would be willing to reconsider its missile defence project.

The Czech Foreign Ministry’s security policy director, Veronika Kuchyňová Šmigolová, says this would certainly be a setback.

“Not having missile defences would have very bad consequences for the security situation only of the Czech Republic, but of Europe as a whole because the United States is still building its missile defences, and no one in the US and Europe talks about abandoning that. It would mean that NATO allies, both the US and European allies, have a different level of security against possible threats of ballistic missiles.”

According to Ms Kuchyňová, such a nuclear non-proliferation would take a long time to finalize, while security threats from countries like Iran are still very much present.

Meanwhile, political analyst Jiří Pehe believes that Russia’s influence in the region will increase if the United States goes ahead with the new plan.

“This doesn’t mean in my opinion that they are ready to give up central Europe. Central Europe is part of NATO and central European countries remain allies of the United States. But it certainly seems to me that this idea that Russia should have some influence on for example whether the US build the entire missile shield in central Europe is basically telling us that Russia will have some influence over central Europe in the future.”

The Obama administration has not yet made an official decision on the missile defence project. However, things may be clearer after US Vice-President Joe Biden speaks at a security conference in Munich this weekend.

The Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, may also have a better idea of how things stand after talks in Washington next week with his American counterpart, Hillary Clinton.

Jiří Pehe says the Czech government should brace itself for what could turn out to be nothing short of an embarrassment.

“For the Czechs, this has really become one of the most important domestic issues on which we wanted to prove that we are good allies, that we are independent of Russia, and many other things. And I think that the government has invested huge political capital into the American radar, and anything that may happen now has a potential to make the government look stupid in a way.”