'Resetting' the stance on the radar

President Obama's administration might be willing to give up the planned anti-missile shield in central Europe in exchange for Russia's help with Iran. This plan caused a storm of indignation in the Czech Republic last week. Somebody even compared it to the Munich Treaty. The situation showed the peculiar relationship that Czech politicians, the elite and the media have with the radar project in Brdy.

Let us try to see the whole thing from a different angle – through the eyes of President Obama. The US is dealing with a giant economic crisis and it is necessary to make cuts in the defence budget. The missile defence system has not been tested out properly yet, and some experts say that it will never provide reliable protection against a state that is capable of firing ballistic missiles. Such a state can confuse the defence system through decoy targets, and that is exactly what the report of US security services claimed in 1999.

The problem of decoy targets is not just an insignificant part of the missile defence system that can be shurgged off and left to be figured out at some time in the future – it might prove to be the main problem that cannot be eliminated. The warhead of the ballistic missile is a metal object weighing 200 kilograms and spanning almost two metres. Let us imagine that when it flies through space the head will be enclosed in an inflated mylar balloon. The rocket…