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. -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- INFLUENCING PUBLIC OPINION -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- ¶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 �0A;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 PRAGUE 00000144 002 OF 004 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. -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- MISSILE DEFENSE AS THE STAGE FOR A WIDER DEBATE -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- ¶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. -------------- -------------- -- THE NATO CONTEXT -------------- -------------- -- ¶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 PRAGUE 00000144 003 OF 004 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. -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- ALLEGATIONS OVER BROADBAND, FACTS USING DIAL-UP -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- ¶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. -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- --- -------------- THE ROAD AHEAD - TIME FOR THE CZECHS TO GET A PLAN -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- --- -------------- ¶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 PRAGUE 00000144 004 OF 004 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