<http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,432313,00.html> Germany to lead Europe against 'son of Star Wars' Special report: George Bush's America Edward Pilkington, Richard Norton-Taylor and John Hooper in Berlin Friday February 2, 2001 Germany, the frontline of the US military presence in Europe during the cold war, will confront the new American defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, in Munich tomorrow about Washington's plans to build a national missile defence system (NMD). The Germans are particularly worried that the Pentagon may ask its European allies come under an extended missile shield. One senior official in Berlin called it a "poisoned chalice". At an annual conference on security policy, Mr Rumsfeld, a cold war hawk and now a proselytiser for NMD, will come face to face with a formidable coalition of European leaders apprehensive about the proposed system. It will be lead by a German delegation expected to include Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, and the defence minister, Rudolf Scharping. The French defence minister, Alain Richard, and Russia's influential national security adviser, Sergei Ivanov, who is strongly opposed to the US missile project, are also due to attend tomorrow's conference. Mr Rumsfeld can expect a more sympathetic hearing from the Nato secretary general, Lord Robertson, and the British defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, who is known to be more favourably inclined towards the US project than many of his European counterparts. Opposition to the NMD-nicknamed "son of Star Wars" - is not the only potential source of tension in Munich this weekend. Europe is nervously awaiting the response of President Bush's team to its plan to set up a common European defence force. Berlin is afraid that a tough line from Washington, which is suspicious that European force ocould undermine Nato, together with mounting tension caused by the NMD, could prompt the worst crisis in US-European relations in decades. The Germans will tell Mr Rumsfeld that they have a list of questions about the efficacy and impact of the proposed anti-missile shield. The first is whether the system, designed to protect America against attack from so-called "rogue" states such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea, would be extended to cover Europe - and, if so, at what price. Senior foreign policy advisers in Berlin fear that the huge cost of development could make NMD unpopular with highly taxed European electorates. "How would we explain to the German people why we are spending millions on NMD rather than on health or the environment?" a senior German diplomat asked. There is also concern that a wider missile system could be used by the US to argue that a separate European defence force was unnecessary. An offer to extend NMD to Europe would probably be accompanied by an invitation to include European firms in the project's development and manufacture. But German officials said they expected the core technology to be retained by the Americans. In 1983, a German delegation visited the United States to gauge the extent to which German firms might benefit from inclusion in the earlier "Star Wars" scheme proposed by Ronald Reagan's presidency. They returned unconvinced of the spin-off benefits, officials said. The NMD project was raised when Tony Blair and Mr Schröder dined in Berlin earlier this, though details of their conversation were not made public. In the absence of a joint European foreign policy - a lack much lamented in German political circles - Mr Schröder and his cabinet are prepared to voice their objections unilaterally. Senior advisers to the German government are warning that the missile plan could prompt China in particular to develop something similar and defray the vast cost by selling the technology to some of the states against which NMD is directed. The Germans' other prime objection is that the system would undermine international arms-control treaties. *********** "But consider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments provision of this protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering. To the extent that the threats against which a government protects its citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket. Since governments themselves often constitute the largest current threats to the livelihoods of their own citizens, many governments operate in essentially the same ways as racketeers." [C. Tilly "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime"--from Bringing the State Back In edited by Peter Evans Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, Cambridge University Press] "Star Wars won't work" [Frank Zappa]
