President Bush’s plan to build a missile-defense shield in Europe won approval from NATO at yesterday’s Bucharest summit meetings, marking an important victory for the U.S. agenda and for American hopes of getting Moscow to ease its opposition. But the summit balked at U.S. pressure to start an admission process for Ukraine and Georgia as premature and liable to raise tensions with Russia.

The planned ballistic missile-defense system involves 10 interceptor missiles based in Poland and a tracking radar site in the Czech Republic. Poland and the Czech Republic are pleased to announce the completion of negotiations on a missile defense agreement,” says a joint statement by the two countries, issued on the fringes of the NATO summit in Bucharest (3 April).

In endorsing the project, a statement by the 26 nations alliance said that the system “will be linked to other US missile defense facilities in Europe and the US.” In addition according to NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the alliance will “develop options for a comprehensive missile defense architecture to extend coverage to all ally territory and population not otherwise covered by the US system.” These areas – including Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania – would not be protected by the missile shield as currently planned. In addition, plans are under discussion about how a NATO-focused network of defenses against short-and-medium-range missiles could be “bolted onto” the planned U.S. shield supposed to operate against long-range attacks.

The U.S. was less successful in its bid to gain NATO admission for the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. The alliance moved to admit Croatia and Albania, but Germany and France led opposition to Bush’s push to expand the alliance into Georgia and Ukraine with a “membership action plan (MAP),” arguing that such a move would unduly provoke Russia, which has vehemently opposed the idea. Most NATO governments also take the view that both these countries have internal troubles – separatism in Georgia, a deep split about Russia in Ukraine – that could become problematical if they were put officially on track to NATO membership. (more…)