Post on 24-Jan-2023
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The Fortunes of the Czech Discourse on the Missile Defense
Nik Hynek and Vít Střítecký
Introduction
The so-called third pillar of the US Missile Defence (MD) belonged among the most
discussed topics in the Czech political and public spaces during 2007-2008. Moreover, it
became a subject of essential controversies where both advocates and opponents often
invoked the notion of national interest.
The aim of this chapter is to empirically examine the process through which the issue
of the MD appeared in the Czech discourse and how it developed and to evaluate it on the
background of the conceptual framework related to national interest. The chapter offers the
following argumentation strategy. Firstly, the authors will argue and empirically show that the
topic of the MD was discursively created in the U.S. as a matter of the (American) national
interest, and it was only later transposed to the position of the Czech governmental speech
act. It is essential to capture the nature of this discursive transfer as the MD provides for an
interesting case of important political reality with an exogenous origin. The chapter will also
show that a key mechanism of the transfer was the utilization of the materials and the
discourse of the American Missile Defense Agency (MDA) by the Czech government, namely
by the Institute of the Government Representative for Communication on the MD.
Secondly, the chapter will elucidate the characteristics of the Czech discourse after the
discursive transfer. Whereas the previous part deals with the international dynamics, this part
will focus on the domestic level. The authors will argue that such an analysis reveals basic
contours of Czech understanding of “security”. Additionally a deeper knowledge of the
domestic context is crucial for the evaluation of the national interest based on the criteria
defined in Kratochvíl’s chapter. Thirdly, the authors will demonstrate that the theme of the
MD cannot be considered as a Czech national interest. This conclusion will reflect that the
process of establishing the MD as the “national interest” speech act by the Czech government
ignored the public support, which is one of the key criteria of the presence of national interest.
In other words, the Czech government has internalized and securitized the external
(American) discourse while eliminating the relevancy of the deliberative processes within the
society and between the society and the government.
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Our analysis will be guided by the following principal research question: Can the issue
of the MD be considered as the Czech national interest? Additionally, this main research
question will be complemented by three working questions. First, what was the original
character of the American political and security discourse on the MD? Second, how was the
debate about the MD, and especially about the third pillar, transferred into the Czech context,
and what was the nature of the transfer? And finally, what were the characteristics of the
internal dynamics of the discourse on the MD in the Czech Republic on the level of the public
space?
The Methodology and Operationalisation
Themes and Metaphores in the Discourse
Thematic analysis lies in the process of searching for and finding key themes for
characterizing the pertinent phenomenon (Daly, Kellehear and Gliksman 1997). In fact, it is
possible to identify this process with multiple readings of the data (Rice and Ezzy 1999: 258).
The analysis focuses on the exposure of patterns of the content organization and relationships
in the framework of the analysed data, through which the emerging themes become analytical
categories (Burman and Parker 1993). While there are several ways in which themes can be
operationalized, this chapter will use the operationalization through key words. These key
words will be structured according to the thematic field and typologized on the basis of
abstraction into general categories. In our case, the key words were inspired by the existing
connections from which the diagnostics of the themes themselves emerged.
The thematic analysis is based on documents that came, on one side, from the
American MDA and, on the other side, from the institution of Tomáš Klvaňa, the special
governmental representative for communication on the MD programme. The referential sets
of documents were Proposed U.S. Missile Defense Assets in Europe (2007) on the side of the
MDA, and a document with the title Bude radar z Kwajaleinu stát v Brdech? (“Will a radar
from Kwajalein stand in the Brdy Area?”) (2007) that was published by Klvaňa's institution,
and a special issue of the magazine A report with the title Česká republika a protiraketová
obrana ("The Czech Republic and Missile Defence"). It should be noted that the documents
on both sides share the structure of argumentation. Whereas the thematic analysis will provide
answers for the first two working questions, the third one will be addressed by the analysis of
metaphores.
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This type of analysis will help us to discover the relationship between the
governmental and public discourses on the MD. During the abduction phase of the research,
the authors were struck by the metaphorical richness of the representations of the importance
(or the harsh criticism) of the MD issue. It is precisely for this reason that the analysis of the
governmental level and public level and their points of intersection on the two examined web
portals (www.protiraketam.cz and www.nezakladnam.cz) are based on an analysis of present
metaphors. The main discursive split will be along the axis of metaphors of agreement (in the
sense of agreement with the installation of the MD component on the Czech territory and
discursive support for it) vs. metaphors of disagreement. Although the metaphor analysis does
not have to take into account the value attitudes that lie behind the sources, the basic
orientation towards the MD is key for operationalizing our questions. Our goal is to show,
what conception of security is predominant among the proponents of the MD and the
opponents respectively.
The research of the metaphors used on the portals mentioned above will be further
enriched by the metaphorical analysis of the media (newspaper) discourse. The daily press, in
its essence, fills out the space between the official governmental space and the widely
conceived public sphere. In agreement with the principles stated above, individual metaphors
will be culled from texts published in the newspapers MF Dnes (right-wing) and Právo (left-
wing). Similarly to the web portals these two sources cannot be basically distinguished by
saying that one of them completely agrees with the MD while the other one completely
disagrees with it either. Thus, the varying metaphors appearing in both of the newspapers will
be classified as "in agreement" or "in disagreement" on the basis of their context.
Nevertheless, the choice of both of these dailies reflects the intuitive precondition that the two
media sources must offer a sufficiently large palette of metaphorical connections in the
framework of both of the categories.
From a theoretical point of view, the planned metaphorical analysis is based on the
concept of the cognitive metaphor referring to the understanding of a notion in terms of
another (Lakoff 1996; Lakoff and Johnson 2002; Drulák and Königová 2007). It is inspired by
research that utilizes a metaphorically based critical discursive analysis that is oriented
towards establishing an issue either in a political discourse (Fairclough and Wodak 1997;
Ferrari 2007; Graham et al. 2004; Van Dijk 1993, 2006) or even in a narrower security
discourse. Methodologically, then, the presented paper could find support in Chilton's (1996)
operationalization of security metaphors and Drulák's (2006) way of elaborating them.
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More practically, we will first define three metaphorical terms that will be as abstract
notions derived from general theories of security. As the second step we will search for
metaphors within the sources and typologize them into three groups under the abstract
metaphorical terms. Finally, we will quantify the results and interpret the meanings of security
prevailing among both, proponents and opponents. The value added of the metaphorical
analysis lies in a possibility to capture the ideas on security expressed through the common
language on the crucial discussion’s hubs (the most relevant websites and selected dailies).
The first metaphorical term defined in this analysis will be CONTAINER. This term
was already introduced in the analysis of the security discourse in Chilton's book Security
Metaphors (Chilton 1996). The preconceptual schema of the term CONTAINER is based on a
clear differentiation between inside and outside, which are separated by clear limits. For
example, in the Cold War discourse, the English word "container" was directly included in the
word "containment", which was tied to politics of containment (Chilton 1996: 51). In
accordance with Chilton's Cold War interpretation, one can find the metaphorical term
CONTAINER in the realist approach to security. One of the basic realist presuppositions is
seeing the nation state as the main actor in international relations. According to realists, the
key interest of every state is its own security, or more specifically, its own survival in the
anarchic international system (Morgenthau 1948/1980; Waltz 1979). Realists claim that the
ability of the state to survive and "secure itself" is dependent above all on the possibility of it
mobilizing its material potential. According to most realists, this mobilization of potential is
essentially permanent because the adverse rules of anarchy, in which states cannot depend on
the "good intentions" of other states, lead to the merciless logic of the security dilemma (Herz
1951). In the theory of security studies, this conception is characterized by the concept of
national security (Wolfers 1991/1962).
From the perspective of consistently differentiating between the inside and the outside
of the state and depending on one's own potential, it is necessary to remember another effect
of the above, which is the strong scepticism that states feel toward long-term cooperation (not
only) in the area of security. It is precisely this characteristic that was mitigated by some
realists when they entered the debate with the liberal stream in the framework of IR theory
(the neo-neo synthesis; Waever 1996; Baldwin 1993). In the framework of security theory, the
defensive realists focusing on survival and fearing of relative losses are closer to the neo-neo
synthesis (Walt 1991; Waltz 1993). In contrast, for the offensive realists the dynamic of the
(neo)realist theory consists in the intentions of predator states that are oriented towards
absolute gains (Mearsheimer 1990, 1995, 2001; cf. Schweller 1994, 1996a, b).
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Also the second metaphorical term, LINK, first appeared in Chilton's (1996). In IR,
the metaphorical term LINK is key for concepts based on the relations between states or other
actors. From the perspective of security, LINK presupposes a firm link or alliance through
which the actors increase their security potential. It is obvious that metaphors related to the
metaphorical term LINK are distant from realist conceptions of security in the sense that the
term CONTAINER views actors as separate and independent (Chilton 1996: 55). In contrast,
the metaphorical term LINK can be found in liberally-oriented approaches to security. On the
border line between realist conceptions of the key role of great powers and the liberal
thoughts building on the possibility of a long-term cooperation stands regime theory, which
emphasizes the role of the hegemon in setting up and controlling the rules of the international
system (Krasner 1983). The area of security, however, can also be thought of from the
perspective of mutual dependency, which creates the conditions for a long-term,
institutionally anchored cooperation (Keohane and Nye 1977; Keohane 1984, 1989). In
contrast to regimes, in the neoliberal view, the fundamental role is played by formal
institutions, which are the result of the rational calculation of the states. The key benefits of
these institutions encompass lowering transaction expenses, improving the exchange of
information, and increasing transparency. Moreover, these processes also facilitate the
political approximation of the relevant actors.
The pluralistic concept of the security community (Deutsch 1957) is also very close to
the liberal view of security. This concept later inspired some constructivists (Adler and
Barnett 1998). In contrast to Deutsch's focus on mechanisms and forms of communication,
they focused on forming and deepening the collective identity in the framework of a
community. According to Adler and Barnett, security communities thus conduct themselves
according to "the logic of the community", which is comparable to the constructivist idea of
the logic of appropriateness (March and Olsen 2004). Thus, constructivistically conceived
security communities are characterized not only by a coordination of different politics, but by
processes of social learning, development of a common trust, and the already mentioned
deepening of the collective identity.
The last metaphorical term, COMMUNITY, can be derived from the constructivist
approaches.. The term COMMUNITY characterizes not only the interests of the members,
which mutually complement and strengthen each other, but also collective identity and
structured cooperation built on the process of complex social learning. From the perspective
of international security relations, the term COMMUNITY represents a constantly deepening
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cooperation, which builds on common values, but, moreover, also "puts the finishing touches"
to these values, thereby intensifying their collective apprehension.
Discourse on the MD and Czech national interest
The purpose of the following lines is to connect the methodology to the discussion of
the national interest (chapter II in this volume). First, it is necessary to differentiate between
three key concepts that are related to national interest: governmental speech act; public
support; and one's own national interest.
Governmental speech act is related to what the Czech government discursively
delimits as the national interest. Our analysis will show that the process by which the
governmental speech act is presented as the so-called national interest is the process of
securitization. The Copenhagen School (Buzan et al. 2005) offers a theoretical explanation of
how, in practice, a discursive and practical establishment of the governmental speech act as
the national interest can be processed through a transposition of exogenous topics. The theory
of securitization shows how in principle any issue and its concrete solution can be raised to
the level of a security interest. When this happens, it becomes de facto impossible to
politically impugn the issue and its solution (Buzan et al. 2005: 34). A securitized issue thus
becomes more significant than a politicized issue, whose legitimacy, in contrast to that of the
unimpugnable securitized issue, continues to develop from the public to the political debate.
Public support is based especially on the criterion of social consensus. The presence of
consensus naturally implies the existence of public support. The national interest can be
identified when there is an agreement between the governmental speech act and the public
support. In such a case, the result is actively presented in an outward direction as the national
interest by the Czech government.
The analysis of relevance relies on the thematic analysis that will show how was the
external (US) origin of the governmental speech act transferred and later securitized by the
Czech government as national interest. Subsequently, the criterion of relevance allows us to
reflect on the thematic and temporal relevance of the studied issue. The criterion of external
acceptance is methodologically informed by the findings of both thematic analysis and
metaphors analysis. The former enables us to show how the only relevant foreign actor was
the US, as opposed to NATO, EU member states, Russia, and China being marginalised. The
latter will allows us to see which actors have been perceived as key players at the level of the
public debate. The combination of both methods is also germane to demonstrating the
mismatch between the official perception and the public perception of who should be counted
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in as a relevant actor. Finally, there is the criterion of consensus, which discussion mainly
relies on the findings from metaphors analysis. These findings are crucial for showing the
degree of difference between the introduced governmental speech act and the public support
(or its lack of). Starting with the metaphorical richness concerning the position of the US and
the Czech government, it allows us to see that the government did not consult the public in
any significant way. Furthermore, the governmental decision to introduce the special
representative (Mr. Radar) rather deepened suspicions of the public about the installation. The
institution itself did not contribute to consensus-making and was frequently mocked in the
existing metaphors.
Czech Discourse on the MD in the Context of the U.S.: A Thematic Analysis
On the basis of the primary analysis of the documents, we defined three basic thematic
patterns that further include subtopics. The first pattern is “the rationalization of the meaning
of placing the MD in Central Europe” that arches over three subtopics – (A) the
characteristics of the security environment, (B) the allied politics, and (C) the geostrategic
position in Central Europe. The second pattern is labelled as “the characteristics of the main
threats” and includes three subtopics as well – (A) proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, (B) the North Korean threat, and (C) the Iranian threat. Finally, the third pattern
relates to “conditions and effects of the main threats” and encompasses two subtopics – (A)
the effectiveness and the functionality of the system, and (B) the impact of the third pillar on
the strategic balance.
The following lines show how one can place all the key words and phrases (henceforth
in cursive) into this structure. On the basis of this step, it will be possible to answer the two
questions posed.
The Rationalization of the MD in Central Europe
In the framework of the characteristics of the security environment (A), the documents of both
sides consistently keep mentioning dangerous and unpredictable regimes, which are
distinguished by their aggressive foreign policy and their tendency to advance their interests
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through force, coercion or pressure. On the Czech side, there is also an emphasis on the
newness of these threats, which are motivated by a fanatical and extreme ideology.
Both the American and the Czech documents emphasize the significance of the Allied
politics (B) for transatlantic security. What resonates more strongly in the Czech setting,
though, is the fact that in contrast to the U.S., Europe is not protected, which creates a certain
disproportion in the framework of the transatlantic relationship. In contrast to this, the
Americans emphasize the logic of security dependency, according to which the U.S. is not
safe if Europe is not safe. The mutual dependency as it is characterized in the American
documents is not primarily based on the protection of common shared values, but rather on
the possibility that the U.S. could be coerced through its European allies in the case of a
serious crisis outside of the transatlantic space. Similarly, the American documents see the
MD as a strengthening of the security of the transatlantic space. This conviction is based on
the presupposition that the presence of the MD will mitigate the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction (henceforth WMDs) and the related necessity of early preparations based on
expectations of threats that do not really exist yet.
Both sets of documents consistently keep mentioning Central Europe as the ideal area
for the placement of the MD in the sense that an MD located there would essentially cover the
entire European continent (C). According to the American documents, the radar base was to
be installed in the Czech Republic and interceptors were to be installed in Poland because of
the ideal geographical/geostrategic positions of the two countries, which make possible an
optimal defensive coverage of "most" of the European territory against threats from the Near
East. In addition to this, the Czech data sample adds a narrative on the specific historico-
geographical experience of the entire region of Central Europe as well as the need to help a
reliable ally, which is based on positive historical experience.
The Characteristics of the Main Threats
The analysis of the documents on both sides shows the close interconnectedness between
dangerous and unpredictable regimes (the so-called rogue regimes) and the dynamic of the
threats of proliferation of WMDs (A). Documents from both the American and the Czech side
mention that these dynamics significantly changed with the end of the Cold War. Wholly
consistent are also the two sides' mentions of the increase in the number of states that have or
could have WMDs at their disposal. The source documents explicitly mention the growth of
states with WMDs over the course of the last few decades, as already 25 states own WMDs, of
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which precisely 9 can threaten the U.S. and/or its allies through missile technologies. It is
relatively surprising that the American documents that were published long before the
Bucharest Summit put a much greater emphasis on the international consensus that is
apparent in NATO declarations.
From the viewpoint of the concrete specification of threats, the American documents
give more attention to the North Korean threat (B). While the Czech documents only mention
North Korea in relation to its relatively successful tests of WMDs, the Americans interpret the
North Korean threat in a more complex way. In the framework of the American discourse, the
North Korean threat is characterized by North Korea's own program for the manufacture of
Taepodong ballistic missiles, whose new generation can carry even nuclear warheads. The
deeper characteristics of the North Korean threat also include the danger of the export of
functional missile technologies. The last significant dimension of the North Korean threat in
the American discourse is the problem of the leakage of know-how related to missile and/or
nuclear technologies, or of already developed ballistic missiles and/or nuclear warheads.
In contrast, the Iranian threat (B) takes up a space of equal significance in both of the
national samples. The Iranian missile program is perceived to be a fundamental security
problem for Europe and also for the areas on and behind Europe's eastern border. The
American documents explicitly mention Turkey and Israel in relation to this problem, while
the Czech ones connect the problem with the eastern part of Europe. The American and the
Czech documents are consistent with each other in their mentions of the Iranian tests of
Shahab 3 missiles and the relatively dynamic technological development of the Iranian
program.
Conditions and Effects of the Construction of the Third Pillar
Next to the "positive" themes one can also find in the documents themes that react to
the basic critical rebukes against the construction of the MD.
The first such theme is the effectiveness and the functionality of the MD (A). The
strategic documents on both sides try to emphasize that the system has already been
successfully tested several times in a setting of simulated crises. Interestingly, neither side
provides details of the tests in this context. This fact is evident as the American documents
mention the success of the anti-missile systems that were intended for defence against short-
range missiles, which were fully utilized in Iraq in the framework of Operation Enduring
Freedom. It is certainly proper to mention here (as the American documents do) that the
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defence has still not been really used against long-range missiles. The effectiveness and the
functionality of the system are based on the argument of the existence of already implemented
apparatuses. The documents on both sides nominally notice the existing early warning radars
in Greenland, the Aleutian Islands and Great Britain and the advanced radar in Japan. The
American and Czech documents also emphasize that the American system is currently the
only functional anti-missile system, while radars established on a similar basis function in
many other (civilian) spheres. The fact that the Czech and the American documents share
these characteristics seems to be significant, for this type of narrative contextualization is very
distant from the general context of the MD, and from an expert perspective, it is problematic
at best and misleading at worst.
On both sides, the thematic pattern related to the effects of the construction of the MD
is quoted by emphasizing the pure defence potential of the MD, which has been tested many
times by now and can be considered to be functional (A). Another significant common
narrative definition is the connection to the multilayered ALTBMD system, which is being
developed by NATO and is intended to provide a defence against long-range and short-range
missiles. In cooperation with NATO, a complex defence of the European territory against
ballistic missiles (A) should eventually be created in the future. American documents connect
this principle with strengthening the transatlantic alliance and confirming America's security
commitments to Europe (again, 1B)
The American documents place a greater emphasis on the claim that the MD presents
another strategic possibility besides nuclear retaliation and military preemptive strikes (B).
The idea that the American side also has a more delicate perception of the strategic effects is
supported by the connection of the MD with the possibility of leading the intentions of enemy
states away from developing and buying intercontinental missile technologies and lowering
the proliferation of WMDs. The Czech documents ignore these connections and limit
themselves only to stating that a strategy of deterrence through the use of attacking missiles is
unusable.
The second widely discussed topic is related to the influence of the MD on the
strategic balance (B). In this regard, the key question is one of the possible threats that the
installation of the third pillar in Central Europe could mean for Russia. Both of the national
contexts strictly mark any threat to Russia from the MD as nonexistent. According to them,
Russia cannot be threatened, considering its geographical position. During their narrative
characterization of this topic, the documents allege that the system is mainly aimed against
possible threats coming from the Middle East. What seems similar is the point that a possible
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US-Russian confrontation would be led across the area of the North Pole, where the planned
radar in Brdy "would not see".
“Murders from Wall Street”, or “Protectors”? An Analysis of MD-related Metaphors in
the Public Space
The empirical summary of the metaphorical analysis starts with the opponents of the MD. The
results show that the opponents dominantly view security through a CONTAINER (see table
bellow). As discussed above, the metaphorical term CONTAINER represents realist view of
the world stressing the permanent evil intentions of the actors that need to be separated from
external threats. On this basis, we can interpret most of the metaphors that were categorized
under the term CONTAINER. Classic examples of these metaphors include "the Russian
conquering beast", "the American Satan", "the imperialistic threat from the East and the
West", "the cuckoo eggs of our Yankee brothers", or "the Colorado potato beetle imperialist".
One particularly striking metaphor was "a small country with a Hussite tradition that will
defend itself against anyone without acting as an obsequious servant to the Pentagon".
Opponents Supporters
CONTAINER 49 66 % 35 33 %
BOND 8 11 % 53 50 %
COMMUNITY 17 23 % 18 17 %
SUMMARY 74 100 % 106 100 %
Less obvious is perhaps what metaphors can be interpreted in the intentions of the
metaphorical term LINK, which implies a certain tendency to alliance. It seems necessary to
mention that it was not possible to interpret any single one of the metaphors as expressing an
intention to form a security link with anyone besides NATO. Thus, we mainly categorized
into this group those metaphors that negatively defined themselves against attempts to create a
common interest/threat that would bring the Czech Republic into a rational, interest-based
alliance. Classic examples of such metaphors include "the virtual missile threat", "the
paranoid theory of an Iranian threat", or "the U.S. is a propagator of fear".
Almost a fourth of the opponents of the radar alluded to the value differences between
the Czech Republic and the U.S. in their metaphorical utterances, as these differences impede
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or should impede attempts to create a "community". In this regard, we can point out that some
of the metaphors categorized under the term CONTAINER, which express "imperialistic"
tendencies, would not have to be interpreted on the basis of the dichotomy inside/outside and
preventing the penetration of foreign influences in certain situations, but they could be seen as
different value-related perspectives. In our interpretation, though, imperialism is seen in
relation to the metaphorical term CONTAINER. Examples of metaphors that we categorized
under the term COMMUNITY include the critical comparisons such as "the owner of an
apartment on the ground floor of the slab block also refuses to contribute to the protection of
the roof because she does not feel threatened", "dragging on our backs the cross of the broken
American reputation", "murderers from Wall Street", "the U.S. as a murderous war-like
machine room", or "a fat Yankee will rub his back against a Czech linden tree".
Regarding the supporters, it is evident that half of the metaphors are consistent with
the metaphorical term LINK. In our interpretation, one can find behind these metaphors a
liberal belief in an interest-motivated alliance with the U.S., which is determined by the
position and the military power of the U.S. in the current international system, as well as by
palpable historical experiences. Classic examples of metaphors falling under this context
include "the American protector" or "the U.S. as the only guarantor of security in Europe".
However, in the intentions of the metaphorical term LINK, we also interpreted metaphors
appealing to a feeling of responsibility for honouring one's commitments. The critically
oriented comparison "sticking one's head in the sand” "or the less critical comparison "paying
off our debts to the U.S. for its help in both of the World Wars" could serve as an example of
these kinds of metaphors.
Almost one fifth of the metaphors used were included under the term COMMUNITY.
Even though a certain emphasis on common values is perceptible among liberal approaches as
well, in our conception, the metaphorical term COMMUNITY fits a deeper conception, which
moves from common interests and values to a common identity. This common identity
deepens through the mechanism of social learning. Under the metaphorical term
COMMUNITY, we included, for example, the metaphors "the West as a paradise", "NATO as
the most successful security community in the history of humanity", "never again about us
without us" and "the unfolding cooperation between the strength of the U.S. and the feeling of
the EU". On the other hand, the metaphors that warn of various threats coming from rogue
states or Russia went under metaphorical term CONTAINER. Among the very significant
metaphors of this type are, for example, "umbrella", "shield" and "dam", which were used in
various contexts and in connection to various threats.
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The analysis shows that while the dominant metaphors among the opponents of the
MD can be categorized under the term CONTAINER, the dominant metaphors among the
proponents can be categorized under the term LINK. This point can be interpreted in the
context of the once more emergent great power rivalry between the U.S. and Russia. Critics of
the MD see the only way out of this rivalry through security autarky. We can mention as
evidence that the U.S. often appeared together with Russia in the framework of the term
LINK, or more specifically, the representations of the two nations often utilized the language
of communist Czechoslovakia and the former Soviet Union (Colorado potato beetle,
imperialism, military machine room).
Although the terms LINK and COMMUNITY share the fundaments based on
attachment, the empirical observation further illustrates the difference. With LINK, the
character of values, the supranational collective identity, and the common good was pushed
into the background. It is quite surprising that most of the proponents of the MD frequently
used metaphors that could be categorized under this term. These proponents leave aside the
emotion-value discourse, which can be connected, for example, with the former president
Václav Havel. Indeed, this discourse was overcome by a more pragmatic view like that which
can be found in books by Jaroslav Hašek (many of the metaphors make explicit references to
Švejk and other Czech literary characters).
Is the Missile Defense in the Czech National Interest? A Procedural Analysis
i): Relevance
The relevance (chapter two this volume) of national interest is based on the presupposition
according to which the national/public interest is a politics that (a) influences in a
fundamental way the (internal or external) functioning of a community, (b) significantly alters
its basic characteristics, or (c) causes important new rights and duties to be engendered. Thus,
the national interest cannot be a politics that is marginal in the given community. It follows
that such an interest is usually nothing more than a few goals and the strategies that lead to
their fulfilment. In turn, when the expression "national interest" is used for a politics that has a
particularistic character (e.g. when it represents the interests of only a certain region or one
social class), it should not be considered as the national interest. In direct opposition to this
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discursively based and securitized governmental speech act stands the examined category of
national interest, which is based on a combination of the governmental speech act and the
public support, or more specifically, on their mutual overlapping. It is evident from many
available research reports as well as from our analysis that the greater part of the Czech
public/citizens oppose the construction of the X-band radar. The realities mentioned above
introduce the conceptually significant question of the subject defining the national interest (cf.
Buzan et al. 1998: 20-46; Balzacq 2005: 178). As the compiled and analysed data show, the
Czech government does not have a discursive monopoly on defining the national interest in
the context of our topic. Indeed, the civic community leans toward a strategy that is
procedurally the same as that of the government. It discursively appropriates the national
interest (the term "national interest" is frequently used on both of the web portals) and its
narrow interconnection with the public interest.
The criterion of relevance is related to the community as a whole. We have already
suggested that the delimitation can be done negatively through antonyms, concretely through
marginality (as an antonym to relevance) and particularism (as an antonym to community or
polity). Although the government successfully securitized the issue and embodied it as a
matter of the so-called national interest, from the perspective of the procedurally delimited
national interest, it was only a matter of the governmental speech act. Additionally, it is
necessary to differentiate between the thematic relevance and the temporal relevance of the
studied issue. Thematic relevance refers to the issue's marginality/centrality, while temporal
relevance is delimited on the axis of newly established vs. long-established issues. It is
precisely such a delimitations that can show how a thematic field that has been ignored up to
that point (i.e. a non-issue) can become an object of debates on national interest. In other
words it can simultaneously step out of marginality and into a centrality of significance and
hence into a field that is key for defining the national interest. The topic of the MD, in terms
of temporal relevance, went through an unusually quick change from being an ignored issue
to being a relevant issue of governmental speech act. At the same time, the radar substantively
became one of the key issues of the governmental speech act. The issue's rapid movement on
both of the delimited axes denotes that even here, the studied issue is an empirically deviant
case. One can hardly find another issue with such a rapid development along both axes, and a
subsequent connection to the national interest.
ii): External Acceptability
15
The second criterion in the framework of the procedural set of criteria is the criterion of
external acceptability. The empirical analysis indicates that the external acceptability of the
decision of the Czech government to install the American component of the MD on the Czech
territory should be correlated to the concept of reference groups. A reference group in this
case is not similar to a group of so-called relevant actors (for the original delimitation in
political science, cf. Sartori 1976), although there is a certain member overlap. We define the
relevant actors as those political entities, which will be directly or indirectly affected by the
installation. This group comprises of the U.S., the EU, NATO (at the intergovernmental level
and at the level of the governments of the member states), Iran, Russia and China. Each of
these actors is directly or indirectly affected by the planned installation: the U.S. as the
designer and owner of the component; the EU as an entity with a common security and
defence politics which counts the Czech Republic among its members (and which was
excluded from any negotiations about the MD due to the general scepticism on the part of the
members about any constructive role that the EU could play in this field and also due to the
disagreement of many EU/NATO member states); NATO as a platform that, on the basis of
the closing statement of the Bucharest Declaration, should be the backbone of the future MD
metasystem; Iran as the country against whose threats the component is to be aimed; Russia as
a country that considers the component itself to be a threat, both militarily and
(geo)politically; and China as a country whose nuclear deterrence potential could be greatly
reduced or maybe even eliminated in the future.
The point here is that calculations of the Czech government did not take into account
many possible points of view of all relevant actors, not even those of the allied actors. The
reference group of the studied topic was made up of only the U.S. (primarily) and NATO
(secondarily), fully neglecting the potential critical EU member states (Germany, France,
Norway, Slovakia). This notion points to a very narrowly understood defined reference group
and indirectly speaks of the relation between perceiving the Czech governmental speech act
and the absence of a perception of the EU common interest. Moreover, the nonexistence of a
unified EU strategy in regard to the MD essentially contributed to this situation. It is precisely
for reasons of external acceptability that such an EU strategy would not allow the Czech
Republic to continue in its chosen strategy.
Given that the Czech governmental speech act was transplanted from an external
environment (thus, it is an exogenously formed governmental speech act), the differentiation
between the endogeny and the exogeny of the national interest becomes a part of the
16
conceptualization of this criteria. Endogeny and exogeny are viewed through their relation to
the dynamic of the MD issue. As our analysis proved, the dynamic of the theme of installing
the component of the MD had its origin in the decision of the U.S. to set up this component in
Europe. What followed was the export of ideas to Czech governmental circles (including the
export of particular steps), the Czech government internalizing the ideas and then propagating
them as an area of the governmental speech act, and finally the culmination of the process in
the following transformation of the issue into a collective interest in the framework of the
NATO platform.
iii): Consensus
The last discussed procedural criterion is consensus. The discussion of the first two criteria
has already suggested its pertinence connected with the issue of difference between the
governmental speech act and the public support in case of relevance, and the notion of
overlooking the lack of consensus on the background of the processes of trasposition and
securitization in case of external acceptability. Regarding the criterion of consensus, the
analysed data show that the Czech governmental speech act, which is discursively defined by
the Czech government and consequently has material effects (preparations for the installation
itself), can be understood as a securitized social fact without the presence of a political
consensus. It confirms the deviant character of our case, in which the Czech governmental
speech act was created in the area of the MD without simultaneously finding a political
consensus (government-opposition) and a politico-social consensus (government-public). The
absence of a consensus can also be delimited in terms of international politics. This was
shown by the discussion of external acceptability with the concepts of relevant actors and
reference groups. It is precisely for this reason that the Czech government initially agreed to
the preferred U.S. strategy to keep bilateral format for negotiation over the MD excluding
potentially sceptical NATO and the EU allies.
Presence (or more specifically absence) of consensus in the area of the MD is also
related to the way the issue was introduced. The MD was unequivocally introduced by
securitization, without a primary presence of politicization. This fact reflected the hegemonic
discourse of the Czech government that associated anti-MD attitudes with positions opposing
the Czech national interest. It is worth mentioning here that particularly distinct were the
metaphorical references to the so-called "octonary years" (1918, 1948, 1968, 1988), which
17
indicated that any lack of action equals an increase in the growth of the Iranian and Russian
threats and an inability to be a valid member of the wider security community (which was
paradoxical, considering the internalization of the narrow American delimitation).
In contrast to Buzan et al., who view politicization and securitization as mutually
exclusive concepts, the issue studied by creates room for a conceptualization of the relation
between securitization and politicization. Although the issue was securitized for domestic
political purposes and the following transition to NATO, in relation to other actors - namely
Russia - the issue was deliberatively desecuritized by both the Czech government and the U.S.
government. The evident goal of this strategy was to avoid a negative view of the presence of
the component on the territory of the CR on the part of the Russian government. In contrast to
this, the Polish government took up a different securitization strategy, which gave the
Russian executives an excuse for their loud protest against the construction of the MD
component. The Polish government - with the support of the Polish public - securitized the
Russian threat instead of the original Iranian threat (i.e. the main threat in the American and
Czech cognitive frame) and discursively represented it as the cause of the necessity to place a
complementary MD component (PAC-3 system) on its territory. Thus, it is evident that
consensus, securitization, and politicization can coexist next to each other. From a conceptual
perspective, "With regard to whom is the issue securitized/desecuritized or politicized?"
seems to be an essential deliberative question.
18
Conclusion
The thematic analysis of the strategic documents from the American Missile Defense Agency
(MDA), the institute of the Special Governmental Representative for Matters Related to the
Radar Tomáš Klvaňa, and the Czech Ministry of Defence proved that the original American
discourse on MD and the later Czech discourse on the same issue were very similar. The
similarity of both of the discourses was factually and structurally so great that that it could
only be perceived as a result of the mechanism of the transposition of discourse from the
American environment to the Czech environment.
The second part of the presented study analysed the topic of the MD in relation to both
the general concept of national interest and the Czech national interest. The national interest
of the CR was grasped from a procedural perspective on the basis of previously marked out
criteria. It was demonstrated that national interest, governmental speech act and public
support were conceptually different. The goal of the conceptual differentiation was to show
that although the Czech government discursively declared a certain issue (here, the MD) to be
an issue of the national interest, here, we cannot speak of national interest as such. This is
because the previous delimitation of national interest contained a presupposition of the
existence of public support, which was not present in the case of the MD. Instead, the
governmental speech act and public support were actually in direct conflict with each other.
19
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