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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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