THE POLITICS OF MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE CZECH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PRAGUE 000144

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

EUR FOR PEKALA, EUR/NCE FOR GARBER AND FICHTE, EUR/PRA FOR
FRIEDT AND AZEVEDO, NSC FOR HAYWARD AND STERLING, OSD FOR
IARROBINO AND SADOWSKA, USNATO FOR SHEEHAN AND MALONEY, MDA
FOR LEHNER AND JENKINS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/12/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV MASS MARR EZ
SUBJECT: THE POLITICS OF MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE CZECH
REPUBLIC

REF: A. PRAGUE 102

B. PRAGUE 106

Classified By: DCM Cameron Munter for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C/NF) Summary: The Czech government welcomes the U.S.
offer to deploy an X-band radar site near Prague as part of
Ballistic Missile Defense's third (European) site. But the
government does not have a strong majority. Public opinion
will determine the outcome of any future parliamentary vote
on a negotiated U.S.-Czech agreement, and Czech MD proponents
fear that the information war is not going as well as
planned. The government is slowly putting together a public
affairs strategy to build on its initial enthusiastic embrace
of the offer.


2. (C/NF) Summary (continued): Opponents of MD, mostly on the
left, have focused on its bilateral nature, and generally
agree that if the Czech deployment can be seen as part of a
broader, NATO-affiliated project for the protection of the
Alliance, they can lend their support. We can expect to see
continued Czech focus on MD at their NATO mission, as they
seek to answer domestic critics of a bilateral approach.


3. (C/NF) Summary (continued): The Czechs must change their
current "sprint" tactic to a "marathon" approach, choosing
political targets and PD opportunities in a strategic
fashion, focusing on the required parliamentary vote of
approval of an eventual agreement (many months from now),and
working closely with us to maximize effectiveness. We must be
forthright and transparent as agreement negotiations
progress. But the Czech leadership must take the lead to sell
MD to its constituents. End summary.

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INFLUENCING PUBLIC OPINION
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4. (C/NF) Czech officials working on missile defense are
having difficulty accepting the U.S. message that they should
pace themselves in conducting their missile defense outreach
to the Czech public. In the period July-December 2006 the
Czechs working on MD were told that they would have to wait
for a U.S. decision on site locations before the USG could
begin in-depth information sharing for consumption by the
Czech public. Outreach activities such as visits for Czech
politicians to U.S. bases were also deferred until it was
certain that a site would actually be offered to the Czech
Republic. Now, with the American offer and the rapid (and
public) Czech response, the government has begun to sprint
long before the finish line is in view. That has led the
chief Czech interlocutor, Deputy Foreign Minister Tomas
Pojar, to push for immediate actions on all fronts without
strategic sequencing. As the process of negotiations over the
deployment will take many months, he risks engendering
incoherence or even incompetent PR strategies. It will be
Embassy Prague's task to give him a Valium and assist him in
efforts to create a strategic plan with proper goals and
benchmarks.


5. (C/NF) Pojar is being driven by domestic concerns. Our
offer arrived in Prague literally minutes before the current,
center-right government was confirmed by Parliament. The
newly confirmed coalition publicly expressed strong support
from the start, but the opposition took some time to figure
out what to do. As the more moderate members of the
opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) and coalition-member Green
parties were being besieged by their more cynical party
members on this issue, the pro-MD Czechs became acutely aware
that the general public was getting most of their
"information" on missile defense from individuals and groups
that are deeply opposed to the project. They feared (and
still fear) that the so-far uneducated public would develop
conventional wisdom on missile defense based solely on the
loud negative information campaign being waged by opponents
in the press, and increasingly in the Brdy locality. While
this conventional wisdom may not be based on factual
information, the public may not come back to the issue to
examine the less sensationalist information that will emerge
later.


6. (C/NF) Half the noise of the public debate in Prague is

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the sound of an ally working hard to make this bilateral
initiative a success. Without Czech Government voices, the
microphone would belong exclusively to those who now loudly
oppose missile defense. So Pojar and his team feel that they
are fighting a public relations battle on all fronts at all
times. We are urging them to pace themselves and address this
challenge calmly, focusing on coherent planning and longer
range goals.


7. (C/NF) In the absence of pre-offer information, negative
polls led to cynical statements by CSSD and Green leaders,
statements which themselves increased opposition. Positive
polls on the radar-only option originally delivered the
backing of CSSD leader Jiri Paroubek, with the accompanying
positive statements that a referendum would not be required.
With a finely balanced parliament, Czech opposition parties
are not keen to adopt an unpopular position. Most CSSD and
Green politicians seem genuinely agnostic on the project.
However they do view the MD issue as fruitful ground for
political gain, just as long as the public is skeptical. As a
result both the Government and those opposed to MD have
concluded that public opinion is the battleground which will
largely determine any future parliamentary vote on missile
defense.

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MISSILE DEFENSE AS THE STAGE FOR A WIDER DEBATE
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8. (C/NF) While many of the politicians will follow the winds
of public opinion, this is an ideological battle for the
civil servants who work to bring missile defense to the Czech
Republic and the NGO campaigners who oppose them. Most pro-MD
Czechs do not believe that an Iranian missile will ever come
crashing through the roof of Prague Castle. Many see MD
primarily as a vehicle to reinforce Czech-U.S. ties in a
manner that will keep a U.S. presence in multilateral
security cooperation in Europe. They also see a U.S. military
facility of any kind in the Czech Republic as an extra
limitation on Moscow's regional ambitions in decades to come,
and in some cases, they see it as a goad to Europe to wake up
and pay attention to extra-European threats. On the anti-MD
side of the divide, many Czech campaigners have a mindset
that would oppose even a U.S. offer to give out free ice
cream in the Czech Republic. Many campaigners portray missile
defense as a vehicle by which Czech citizens, even as
inhabitants of a small country, can register their
displeasure at current U.S. foreign policy. A significant
number of CSSD and Green politicians are not far behind this
stance (but many will not say so publicly in case the winds
of public opinion change). Those opposed to MD also use
rhetoric aimed at shaping the desired result instead of
employing their own genuinely held beliefs. Many past critics
of Czech participation in NATO now decry the fact that the
U.S. missile defense system is not part of NATO. Similarly,
comparisons to the behavior of the Soviet military after the
invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 are put forth by those who
do understand the difference. They just hope the general
public will jump to a conclusion that U.S. troops on Czech
soil is a bad idea.

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THE NATO CONTEXT
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9. (C/NF) Informed public critics have focused on the fact
that the United States is offering a bilateral agreement.
Some political leaders -- among them parliamentarians Jan
Hamacek of the opposition Social Democrats and Ondrej Liska
of the coalition-member Greens, both of whom will visit
Washington in coming weeks -- have said that a "NATO MD
system" would win their support. Thus, they implicitly accept
our argument that MD addresses a real threat, and that it can
be an important element for the defense of the Alliance.
While we are clear that the current offer is for a bilateral
agreement, we also claim that our plans do not supersede NATO
missile defense debates, but rather complement them: third
site MD deployment in the Czech Republic will help build the
structures within which an eventual NATO MD system can fit
(thus the Czechs are leading an effort to help NATO, not to
hurt it); and of course, that by extending coverage to
Allies, this bilateral arrangement ensures that NATO members

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are all afforded the same protection from potential blackmail
from states that might one day possess intercontinental
missiles and WMD -- that is, avoiding "decoupling" America
from its allies.


10. (C/NF) Thus, in order to help the Czechs win their
domestic battle for MD, we must urge NATO to be forthcoming
in its support of MD in general and the third site in
particular -- that it helps the Alliance and is consistent
with our common goals. Embassy Prague has stuck to the
talking point that U.S. missile defense is complementary to
any potential NATO system to meet similar threats, and that
the United States is prepared to discuss possible U.S.
contributions to a NATO effort to protect Europe from
ballistic missile attack. Frenetic Czech activity in Brussels
has so far sought to maximize the Czech public's impression
that U.S. missile defense is somehow associated with NATO.
This is a deliberate political calculation on the part of
pro-MD Czech campaigners rather than any kind of
misunderstanding. Over the next few months they will be
pushing for positive signals from NATO on future
compatibility. Expect Czech leaders to push this point hard.

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ALLEGATIONS OVER BROADBAND, FACTS USING DIAL-UP
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11. (C/NF) Czech opponents of missile defense have chosen to
be loud now and to fight now, rather than let the Czech
Government acclimatize the public to the idea of foreign
troops on Czech soil. In this environment, the pro-MD
Topolanek Government jumped out in front of anti-MD
propaganda by adopting a policy of maximum openness (Ref A).
This policy has more than occasionally run into problems when
government representatives are asked questions that they
cannot answer. The U.S. message to Prague has been that the
Czechs should make every attempt to defer statements on
missile defense until negotiations begin. However, every day,
pro-MD Czech leaders are asked questions like "how many U.S.
X-band radars are close to population centers." That type of
media question, typically provoked by the (usually
inaccurate) claims of anti-MD campaigners, cannot be
deflected towards the separate issue of negotiations. This
dynamic is especially damaging because much of the Czech
media have consistently chosen to report unanswered
allegations as fact. In this environment the Embassy has
provided very basic information. A revamped missile defense
page on Embassy Prague's website, going live this week, will
help get the facts out. Over the past eight months we have
been aided by the MDA public affairs section in Washington,
which has been extremely helpful. However, collaboration
between public affairs offices should not remain the primary
channel for daily Czech government-USG information sharing on
missile defense. Czech officials have learned much about
missile defense in recent months but they are still
confronted by factual questions they cannot answer. Basic
information sharing on the facts of missile defense need not
be a difficult or time consuming process. It might need to
involve only one Czech government official and one USG MD
expert to exchange cell phone numbers.

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THE ROAD AHEAD - TIME FOR THE CZECHS TO GET A PLAN
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12. (C/NF) Over time, we are confident we can match strategic
thinking on both sides of the Atlantic. As that happens, the
Czech government has a tough but manageable task: to provide
a coherent public affairs strategy with a Czech lead, with a
reasonable amount of soberly planned U.S. outreach
opportunities over the next six months.


13. (C/NF) The Czech government's approach, while quick off
the blocks, has yet to develop a strategic or long term
quality. Beyond merely telling them again to develop a long
term plan, we can promote strategic thinking by telling the
Czechs exactly what kind of outreach activities the U.S.
government is prepared to facilitate in the coming months. If
we give the Czech government a list of what we are prepared
to do over the next year (such as one U.S. site visit for
national politicians with 6 weeks notice, one visit to a U.S.
base in Germany with 4 weeks notice, two interviews from

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General Obering with Czech press in Washington, or similar
concrete options) then we can look forward to the Czech
government using these opportunities judiciously. We look to
MDA and others in Washington for funding. This increasing
coordination could act as an enabler, with the Czech
government continuing to manage the public debate away from a
course steered by Czech opponents of U.S. missile defense,
during the months of bilateral negotiation that lie ahead.
GRABER