| Insert MAP (if desired) | Music | 00:00 |
| Archival. Moscow military parade |
| 00:11 |
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| BEVAN: It was a world superpower for more than forty years. The annual parade through Moscow’s Red Square was a show of muscle. | 00:21 |
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| Music | 00:30 |
| Dissolve through to 2008 parade |
| 00:36 |
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| BEVAN: But this was the Victory Day parade this year. | 00:41 |
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| Its economy fuelled by oil and gas, Russia is becoming rich, and it’s rediscovered the confidence to tell the world that it won’t be pushed around, least of all by old foes. | 00:47 |
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| Music | 01:05 |
| Missile vision |
| 01:12 |
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| BEVAN: It’s because of this -- an American plan to put missile launchers on European soil. | 01:17 |
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| The United States calls it a missile defence shield. A system to detect, then intercept, ballistic missiles fired from so-called rogue states. | 01:28 |
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| In U.S. eyes, Iran is at the top of that list. | 01:45 |
| Graber | GRABER: I think right now you have a Europe that’s not protected at all against this threat. | 01:52 |
| Rockets | BEVAN: But the plan has infuriated the Russians, and it’s left central Europe caught once more between the competing ambitions of two massive powers. | 02:00 |
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| Music | 02:12 |
| Cannons, knights fighting SUPER: |
| 02:19 |
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| BEVAN: The plains of Poland have been a battleground for millennia. Weapons have changed through the centuries but not the fighting spirit of many of those who’ve lived on this land. And if there are lessons to be learnt from the past, then chances are Bronislaw Nowak is well aware of them. | 02:31 |
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| He’s a lecturer in medieval studies in the city of Slupsk, on Poland’s Baltic coast. He not only teaches history, but he re enacts it. | 01:57 |
| Bronislaw in costume | BRONISLAW: It’s hard to imagine how the knight feels until one puts on the helmet, lowers the visor and raises the sword. | 03:10 |
| Bronislaw fights battle | Music | 03:20 |
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| BEVAN: Battling his foes might be play acting now, but not that long ago this 47 year old was ready for real battle. He was a fighter pilot in the Polish Air Force during the Cold War. | 03:24 |
| MiG23 | BRONISLAW: This is a MiG23 I flew in this plane, fast, very good plane. | 03:41 |
| Old plane in park | BEVAN: For much of his 15-year career until he retired in 1995, Bronislaw Nowak flew in and out of the Redzikowo base, just outside of Slupsk. | 03:49 |
| Home video footage of Bronislaw and his plane | The main role of his fighter squadron was to confront any enemies before they crossed the Baltic Sea coastline and into Poland. It was a job Bronislaw Nowak took seriously, no matter who the enemies may have been. | 04:02 |
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| BRONISLAW: For me, it was a duty as a soldier to defend my country against any threats, | 04:20 |
| Bronislaw | and so when the Americans were the aggressors, I had to defend my country against them. From 1991 in the same way, I would fight against the Russians as the political direction changed. | 04:28 |
| Home video footage of Bronislaw and his plane | BEVAN: Those changes in the early 1990s saw the Soviet Union break up, and Poland’s Cold War ally suddenly became a potential threat. | 04:49 |
| Retired planes at base. Shots around base | Today, the only aircraft are stuck up on blocks at the main gate of the base. Nothing but the wind whistles down the runway. Hangars that once concealed state of the art fighter jets are abandoned. | 05:00 |
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| It may look like a forlorn and forgotten piece of the Cold War, but this former air base is becoming a key battle ground in a new era of military one-upmanship. For it’s here that the United States intends to install an integral part of its proposed missile defence shield in Europe. | 05:20 |
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| This site is to host ten missile interceptors, and placed in a series of silos and to be used, as the Americans tell it, to nullify intercontinental attacks by rogue states. But before anything’s been built here, these plans are already opening huge cracks in opinion in the nearby city of Slupsk, in Poland – in fact, right across Europe. | 05:37 |
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| For pilot Bronislaw Nowak, the base that once helped defend his country could be targeted by a new foe. | 06:00 |
| Bronislaw | BRONISLAW: We have no doubt that in this area there are strategic goals which will become a target of missiles, Russian missiles first of all. | 06:08 |
| Kobylinski in town hall | BEVAN: He may be surrounded by tradition in the town hall, but the Mayor of Slupsk, Maciej Kobylinski, has fixed his gaze on the city’s future. And one of the keys to that future, the Mayor believes, is the missile defence shield. The Americans, he says, will bring investment – and plenty of it -- into his community of about 100 thousand people. | 06:24 |
| Kobylinski with US flag | KOBYLINSKI: American. | 06:45 |
| Photos. Kobylinski on US tour | Music | 06:48 |
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| BEVAN: The Mayor was taken on a hearts and minds tour of bases and military towns in the United States. He’s returned with a flag, some insight and a whole lot of photos. He left the Americans with his support. | 06:50 |
| Kobylinski | KOBYLINSKI: In my opinion there could be an element of risk. For instance, once the shield is in place it may bring many changes - maybe social changes - I can’t really predict it. But at the end of the day the most important issue is about global security. | 07:09 |
| Putin on TV | BEVAN: The Mayor and his constituents have good reason to be concerned about their security. | 07:44 |
| Putin at conference | This was the extraordinary proclamation from Russia’s former President, now Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. | 07:50 |
| Super: February 14, 2008 | PUTIN: Our experts think this system threatens our national security and if it appears, we will have to adequately react. In this case we will have to re-direct part of our missile system to the locations that pose a threat. | 07:58 |
| Warsaw | Music | 08:20 |
| Bevan with Bartosz | BEVAN: Bartosz Weglarczyk is a commentator for Gazeta Wybororcza, one of Poland’s largest daily newspapers. | 08:31 |
| Walking through Warsaw | In his home city of Warsaw, you need only wander the streets of the old town to be reminded of what happens if threat turns into dreadful action. This all had to be rebuilt after the Nazis destroyed it during the Second World War. | 08:39 |
| Modern Warsaw | When the war ended, Poland was effectively controlled by the Soviet Union for 44 years. Bartosz Weglarczyk believes the missile defence shield would draw Poland and the United States closer together – and that would keep Russia away. | 08:57 |
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| BARETOSZ: For the first time in the history of Poland, | 09:17 |
| Bartosz. Super: | Poland would be a part of the defence system for the United States. Polish soldiers and Polish military would be a part of the defence line. | 09:20 |
| People on street | People who defend your house are your friends, and you tend to care for them because they defend your house, it’s very simple. | 09:31 |
| Prague |
| 09:40 |
| Re-Enactment. Soldiers and jeeps | Music | 09:46 |
| Super: Prague | BEVAN: The Americans love to remind the world that they’ve helped rescue the Czech people once before. This is liberation day in Prague, commemorating 63 years since US troops forced out the last German soldiers during World War Two. | 09:56 |
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| The Czech enthusiasts who have restored these American pieces of history wear their authentic uniforms with a certain swagger. In the crowd wanders the U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Richard W. Graber. | 10:19 |
| Graber makes speech at Liberation Day | GRABER: It’s also an opportunity to celebrate and remember the lives that were sacrificed in the cause of liberation and of freedom. | 10:34 |
| Embassy grounds | BEVAN: From the Embassy grounds, Richard W. Graber has a view of just about everything. | 10:44 |
| View of castle | GRABER: This may be the best view of Prague, because you get such a wonderful panorama of the castle. | 10:52 |
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| BEVAN: The United States is eyeing off another piece of Czech real estate to build a radar facility as part of the missile defence shield. | 10:59 |
| Graber. Super: | GRABER: Placing the radar facility in the Czech Republic and the interceptors in Poland provides the broadest possible coverage, so you’re protecting not only the United States, but almost all of Europe. | 11:07 |
| Prague | Music | 11:19 |
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| BEVAN: The missile defence shield has divided the nation’s parliament and the Czech people. Opinion polls suggest about seventy percent of the population is against hosting the base. | 11:27 |
| Proposed site of radar station | This is where the radar station is likely to be based, in the Brdy Mountains, about an hour’s drive south-west of Prague. | 11:45 |
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| When the country was part of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet bloc, this was an army base. | 11:53 |
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| These days it’s a training ground for Czech soldiers – and the security here is obvious. | 12:01 |
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| We’re shown a cleared field where the support buildings will be. While it may be small site, the Defence Ministry says the radar will make a big difference to the country’s security. | 12:10 |
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| Bevan: Could this area become a target for missiles? | 12:22 |
| Pejsek. Super: Jan Pejsek | PEJSEK: America has bases in 18 European countries, and all are targets. Maybe target will be in Czech Republic also. | 12:28 |
| Village near site | BEVAN: And that’s what worries many of those living in the villages dotted around the site. | 12:44 |
| Neoral with man by fence | Jan Neoral is the Mayor of Trokavec, which is home to about 90 of his citizens. This village leader with a fondness for cowboy ties wants no part of the American plans, calling it a catastrophe not for only his home, but Europe. | 12:51 |
| Neoral | NEORAL: The problem is that this radar base isn’t supposed to protect us. It’s supposed to protect American territory. And what’s more in Europe it’s fuelling a new round of rearmament and danger. | 13:11 |
| Neoral with protestors | BEVAN: The bucolic atmosphere of Trokavec has been pushed aside for the moment, as the village becomes a staging post for radar base protestors. | 13:28 |
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| NEORAL: This government in my opinion has to go. | 13:40 |
| Neoral | And I intend to do everything I can to see this government resign or be removed, so the radar will not be built here. | 13:46 |
| Graber | GRABER: It helps to have popular support, it’s good to have popular support, I’m afraid that so much of this has become for local politics, a domestic political dispute is going on in the very closely divided parliament here, and I’m not sure that is a good thing. | 13:51 |
| Super: Moscow | Music | 14:10 |
| Ivashov in hall of glory | BEVAN: For General Leonid Ivashov, there’s an uneasy sense of history repeating in the American plans for a missile defence shield. | 14:24 |
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| After all, he built a long career around protecting his country when it was the Soviet Union and locked in the Cold War with the West. | 14:35 |
| Ivashov | IVASHOV: Russia is in general concerned by the mono-polar world, and the USA’s striving to have world domination. To be able to command the world, the USA has to vanquish Russia. | 14:47 |
| Ivashov in meeting | BEVAN: This former army chief of staff says Russia’s threat to target missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic is not hollow. | 15:07 |
| Ivashov | IVASHOV: Our military facilities will undoubtedly be targeted at these sites but I told the Poles: “Do not think that Russia will strikes responsive blows just on these sites. The first blow we shall strike will be on Warsaw - then Gdansk and others. | 15:16 |
| Cadet Corps on parade | BEVAN: As national pride in Russia grows, so does the desire to defend the country. And that desire can be found in the very young. | 15:47 |
| Nikita and cadet assemble guns | Sixteen year old Nikita Davydov is a student at Moscow’s Sholokhov Kazakh Cadet Corps School. Here they mix academic studies and military training with patriotism, winding its way all through the curriculum. | 16:00 |
| Boys in mess | In these boys’ eyes, the United States may not be an enemy of Russia, but it’s no friend either – and they see the missile defence shield as proof of that. | 16:18 |
| Nikita | NIKITA: I am against it and I reckon all others of my age are also against it. | 16:29 |
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| I reckon the Americans just want to separate Russia from other countries that were a part of the Soviet Union and create bad relations with them. | 16:35 |
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| They are afraid of Russia! | 16:48 |
| Missile sequence | Music | 16:52 |
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| BEVAN: The project seems unstoppable anyway. In Alaska and California the interceptor bases are in place already. But the Americans say their defence shield won’t be complete without bases in Europe. | 17:05 |
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| For all the brinkmanship, the United States has told Russia and its leaders they have nothing to fear -- that the shield is protection against Iran. | 17:23 |
| Graber. Super: | GRABER: It’s not aimed at Russia at all, and when you think about it, 10 interceptors and a radar against what Russia’s arsenal is, it’s sort of nonsense to think that this in any way can do anything to deter Russia. | 17:40 |
| People on street | Music | 18:00 |
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| BEVAN: For the countries of the New Europe, it’s a precarious path to tread. To somehow strike a deal with one great power without incurring the wrath of the other. | 18:07 |
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Reporter: Scott Bevan Camera: Ron Ekkel Russia research: Olga Pavlova Editor: Bryan Milliss Producer: Trevor Bormann | 18:30 |