MAYBE some jam tomorrow, but none today. That is the American message to its most stalwart allies in the ex-communist world as Barack Obamaâs administration shelves plans to deploy ten interceptor rockets in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. The timing of the announcement is poor, coming on September 17th, the anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland in 1939. In a country highly tuned to symbolic snubs, it matters that nobody in Washington seemed to know or care about that. The news was broken clumsily too: the Czech prime minister was woken by a brief phone call from Mr Obama the night before the decision was made public. Poland is at least gaining some promise of a beefed up American contribution to its security. The Czech Republic receives nothing, for now, in exchange for its loyalty to a controversial scheme that was supposedly a symbol of Americaâs commitment to the region. Atlanticist politicians in Prague feel humiliated by that. From Economist.com
Yes, Poland and Czech Republic will keep you warm at night. Missile defense is a fantasy, Poland and Czech Republic should have never been allowed into NATO.
Stupid Americans make factually incomplete posts on little known forums. I don't see Obama posting here, I only see him running the most powerful nation on Earth.
I'd like to think that the US got a behind the scenes tradeoff from the Russians on this i.e., Russian support on dealing with Iran and a slowing down of their nuclear technology and missile technology transfer to Iran, but it is difficult to assume anything in American foreign policy. In any case, the Russians are in the process of making their own hanging rope by supplying Iran with nuclear technology. Iran can and will transfer nukes to the Islamist Chechen terrorist organizations at the right time just as it intends to do so to the Islamist Hizbollah and Hamas terror networks.
I never understood the Russian / Iranian axis. Sometimes I think China and Russia only act to hurt the US without regard to themselves. It does seems Chechen is fearful of Putin. He must have been brutal down there. Maybe the idea of grabbing land is behind us. It now is very expensive to occupy peoples. I am sure China would be happy if they never had taken Tibet. It must be a net lost in time and money for them. Old cold war mentally.