[MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING?]
NATO, Turkey and one missile defence shield
by
GÜLNUR AYBET*

It all looked fairly straightforward. In fact, seeing how smoothly the NATO summit was progressing in Lisbon, one was apt to forget the crisis and drama surrounding the adoption of the missile defense shield in the months leading up to the summit. But the details of the deal and the hard bargaining positions between the nation states were worked out by the diplomatic delegations in NATO and the International Staff long before the summit. By the time the heads of state and foreign and defense ministers got off their planes and joined the family photo, everything had been signed, sealed and delivered. What is left is an unveiling ceremony.

But the road to Lisbon has been bumpy at best, not that it has been the most crucial test for Alliance cohesion. Since its very inception, NATO has constantly been tested on its cohesion and now with a membership of 28 countries, without a tangible threat to point at, finding that cohesion is more problematic.

What is missile defense and why does NATO need it?

Building a missile defense shield for NATO is not a new idea. It has been around since the 1990s, initially to only protect NATO troops against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (theater missile defense). However, from 2002 onward NATO has been looking into ways to expand missile defense to protect its territory and people (territorial missile defense) and this is what the Alliance agreed on at Lisbon.

But even the initial capacity for the protection of troops will not be in place till the end of this year. The development of these systems takes time, not just in terms of feasibility and military deployment but also in politically-approved plans and agreed details of engagement. That is quite hard to do with 28 members.

But how much is the Alliance really in danger of an incoming missile threat, and from whom? Given the gap in threat perception among the member states, this has been the hardest part of reaching an agreement. In actual fact, many countries are acquiring missiles that can carry not only conventional warheads but also weapons of mass destruction. And not every state that acquires missile capabilities is necessarily going to be a threat to NATO. However, the proliferation of missile capabilities is a fact. And although there may be not an imminent threat to NATO today, there could well be tomorrow.

The logic behind NATO’s continual interest in missile defense since the 1990s is to have the capability to deal with an emerging threat in the future, which would require adapting an existing missile defense system, rather than building it from scratch, as missile defense cannot be built in short notice due to some unforeseen crisis.

A missile defense system has three components: the interceptor missiles, a radar system and command and control. The NATO defense shield is part of the US plan, the “Phased Adaptive Approach.” This plan envisages the initial deployment, by 2011, of sea-based SM-3 interceptors and radar to protect Europe and mostly US military bases and personnel in Europe. The second phase sees the deployment of land based SM-3A interceptors by 2018 to counter short-, medium- and intermediate-range missile threats. The third phase sees the deployment of the more advanced land based SM-3IIB by 2020 to counter future intercontinental ballistic missile threats to the US. The agreement reached at Lisbon was to go beyond the 2011 sea-based deployment, ready for the second and third phases. What the US wanted was an agreement in principle for NATO to come on board. Unlike the Bush administration, the Obama administration has been keen on presenting the missile defense plan as a NATO project rather than a US led one. Of course, since all the systems to be deployed are American, it leaves us with the uncomfortable question of command and control which surrounded many a “nuclear sharing” debate in the Alliance in the 1960s. In that sense, not much has changed.

Turkish objections, naming names and the game of deterrence

While the US got its agreement in principle for a NATO missile defense shield, thrashing out the details in the coming phases is not going to be easy. Turkey has had long-standing objections to the missile defense plan on two counts: the naming of a specific target like Iran or Syria, and the command and control. While the second is not likely to be resolved in Turkey’s favor, the issue of naming a specific threat has been papered over in the Lisbon summit – but is likely to come up again once the system is deployed. Under the second phase of the plan, the land based components of the system would consist of interceptors based in Romania or Poland, or maybe both, and a radar system deployed in Turkey.

Why has the proposed radar system become such an issue of consternation between Turkey and the Alliance? Although one could agree to develop a missile defense system without naming a specific threat, as NATO did in the Lisbon summit, the geographic position of the radar does in fact indicate where the envisaged threat is likely to come from. This is because it is the radar that guides the interceptor toward its target for a large part of its trajectory. The accuracy of the interceptor is very much dependent on the quality of the radar, which depends on how close the radar is positioned to the original launch point of the target. As one NATO official put it, “it’s like hitting a bullet in the air with another bullet.” This level of deadly accuracy means that where you position the radar is crucial, which means that by positioning the radar in Turkey, NATO and the US already have a clear idea where the “emerging” threat is likely to emanate from: the Middle East or Asia.

But apart from what the position of the radar implies, the naming of a specific threat like Iran was on the agenda for the summit, ever since it was implied in the pre-summit guidance report compiled by Madeleine Albright and the Group of Experts. On this, Turkey won out. No names were named specifically. But the positioning of the radar still implies that the envisaged threat is likely to be from Iran.

A test of loyalty? Alliance politics and Turkish foreign policy

Turkey’s objections to the missile defense shield were unfortunately received in Alliance politics as Turkey’s “test of loyalty.” This in turn led to speculations based on the growing concerns about Turkey “shifting East” in foreign policy, away from its traditional transatlantic partnership. That was too simple an analysis to make, given the complexities of the Turkish position, but an understandable one, given how the Turkish leadership has been puzzling the West with its colorful rhetoric on Iran.

While the US has been supportive of Turkey’s more independent and assertive role in the region, there have been red lines all along, which the US and Europe have felt uncomfortable about Turkey crossing, particularly towards the Middle East and the Islamic world. One of those red lines was the Turkish vote against fresh sanctions on Iran in the UN Security Council. Since the debates about Turkish resistance to the missile defense shield came so close on the heels of the UN vote, it was natural for Western speculators to see this as Turkey’s “test of loyalty.” The error in shaping the issue on the basis of “identity” was misguided. How many times have Alliance members been noted for their assertive, sometimes bordering on eccentric, behavior? When de Gaulle, resisted all plans for NATO’s then Strategic Concept, “flexible response,” took France out of the Alliance’s integrated military structure in 1966, there were no speculations of France changing its “identity” or shifting “East.”

When Turkey gets assertive nowadays, the big fear is whether it no longer belongs with the West. In actual fact, by resisting the naming of Iran as a threat Turkey was not “shifting its axis” of loyalty. It just does not see Iran as a threat today. That does not mean it will not be a threat for Turkey tomorrow. And here is the discrepancy between long- and short-term threat perceptions in the Alliance. And since missile defense is a long-term process in development, it becomes more problematic for the Alliance to bridge the gap between long- and short-term threat perceptions. And that is where Turkey’s allies should be focusing rather than shaping the issue into a matter of “identity.” After all, Turkey’s insistence on indivisibility of Alliance security, burden sharing and Alliance solidarity hardly rings of a shift to the East.