Riki Ellison, head of the Washington-based Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance, has told Gazeta Wyborcza that generals from the Pentagon didn’t even discuss the original plan, agreed between the Bush administration and the Polish government last year to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic, at a conference on missile defence last week.
Minds at the US defence ministry have moved on to find other solutions, Gazeta reports, including the idea floated by Boeing last week of a mobile anti-missile system, which would move to areas in which it was needed on ships.
The newspaper quotes a source within Congress who says that Obama’s administration has been sounding out lawmakers, for two weeks now, on how they would react to the news that the Poland/Czech Republic anti-missile system is to be cancelled.
Washington appears to have abandoned the plans for three reasons - worries about cost, reliability, and the Kremlin’s strong opposition to the plan.
Barack Obama has shown a much more conciliatory stance towards Russia since he came to office last January. The planned anti-missile system in central Europe has been seen in Moscow as an aggressive system and not one of defence against “rogue states” such as Iran, as was always argued by George W. Bush.
Czech radar to go ahead?

The Czech First Deputy Foreign Minister Tomas Pojar, however, has said that the Boeing system does not threaten the radar part of the system in the Czech Republic.
"The whole system will always function based on the combination of fixed and mobile elements (including many radars) that will complement one another. It is not possible otherwise," Pojar said this week, clearly not giving up on the possibility of having the anti-missile system.
James Cartwright , Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, quoted at a conference in Hunstville, Alabama, agrees. “The tracking and guidance radar, which is being considered in the Czech Republic will be needed, regardless of where the missile systems will be deployed.”
Generally, though, the White House has been sending out signals that Poland is not as central to US defence plans in Europe as it once was. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said this week that he has given up hope of expecting a high level delegation from Washington to show up at the 70th anniversary of the start of WW II in Gdansk on September 1, even though most European states are sending top level politicians, including Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Putin.
The anti-missile shield plans could be another casualty of this shift in emphasis.