Mr Obama, tear down these missile sites

David Ossitt

Please do something about the jumping screens!

Every time one moves a page or clicks a link we get screen jump, it is awful.

Will somebody please sort this out?

MaxSceptic

This new online 're-vamp' is awful.

Abort it now!

(And sue your IT people)

porkbelly

Yes, when the Russian tanks once again rumble through Warsaw it will be an enormous comfort to the Poles that NATO has a School for Post-Conflict Resolution ready to spring into action. Of course the Russians aren't like that anymore, are they?
Here again Obama deploys his superhuman ego, mightier apparently than any missile defense, to disarm the Iranians, North Koreans and any other state which has not yet been bathed in His radiance. Presumeably by casting aside our defences (and those of various small, tiresome East European nations, but no matter) our former foes will immediately begin beating their swords into plowshares. First He has made America see the error of its ways, next the world.
Knowing Putin, he's not celebrating. Instead of knocking back the vodka he is probably convening his advisors to try to understand this latest devious American ploy...since it is well-known that no nation disarms unilaterally this can only be a ruse to get Russia to lower guard - thus it must redouble its efforts to modernize its amred forces and expand its sphere of influence back into Eastern Europe.
Israel, of course, will realize that there's room for more than one former ally under that particular bus - they too must act soon and not wait on American approval.
Iran will note that Europe will not be defended from their missiles in the foreseeable future and will naturally redouble its efforts to build medium-range missiles (while proclaiming their eternal readiness to negotiate a nuclear-free Middle East).
And Obama? His name will go down in the history books all right: the man who made WWIII inevitable.

dong porou

RIP Pax Americana, 1945-2009

strapworld

Pork Belly. Your comment is extremely valid, but please use a spell checker. Plough not Plow etc.

Perhaps this is Obama's way to tell Nato that he is disgusted with the lack of support in Afghanistan. Indeed why should the USA worry about Europe.

The truth is that we, as a country, are now in bed with a bunch of cowards. In an organisation that is so bad at making a decision, it would probably declare war when Russia had command of the whole of Europe!

We need a strong NATO with members committed to an equal balance of support in a Nato backed venture.

Now the Italians are running away..didn't they do that in Iraq?
The Germans cannot come out at night. The French, despite their strong army, are not at the front. The Canadians are right in saying that they will pull out if all NATO does not show greater support.We should follow their lead.

So, I can well understand Obama using this as a way of telling Nato, enough is enough.

I have no doubt that a new Republican President backed by the huge defence manufacturers in the USA will restore this scheme- should the american people want to remain in Nato!

However, am I alone in believing that the EU will raise the white flag to Russia and ask them to join and protect Europe?

Let's face it, most of those running this undemocratic, totalitarian regime are (ex?) communists!

Bill Tanner

So here's the lesson for second-tier presumptive regional powers who want carte blanche to intimidate smaller neighbours: if you want the US to change its policy in a given region, write a national security strategy that asserts that US regional policy is a threat to 'global stability' ie your own interests. The adolescent pussies in the White House want so much to be adored that they'll fold faster than Superman on laundry day.

How much store does Obama set in Russian support for Iranian non-proliferation, when there are good indicators that Russia is proliferating to Iran?

Dean

A courageous move by the Obama administration - and a welcome sign that US foreign policy is once more being guided by realpolitik considerations (including the need to do business with Russia), rather than the delusional "New World Order" fantasies of the Republican right which got us....absolutely nowhere.

The Bush administration always maintained that the missile defence system was designed to protect Europe against Iranian long range missiles, so it is a bit rich to read some of the comments here about how Obama's decision to scrap the system will leave Poland and the Czech Republic undefended against Russia! Why bring Russia into the equation at all if the system was designed to meet an Iranian threat?

The hard fact of the matter is that we do need to do business with Russia, we do need to recognise its regional power status, and we do need to be sensitive to its fear of encirclement by hostile powers, which for centuries has been a guiding principle of Russian foreign policy (particularly following the deaths of 20 million people in the Second World War).

In any case, we can't fight a war on two fronts. For now, we need to decide who constitutes the greater threat - Russia or Islamic extremism?

Nicholas

As with all NWO commie sleepers what you see ain't going to be what you get.

DavidDP

"Yes, when the Russian tanks once again rumble through Warsaw "

What a childish comment.

Moving on.
I wasn't necessary supportive of the move, but some of the analysis has given one pause for thought and suggests it may be a sensible option. Time will tell, but it's not clear cut either way.

Crystal Bullet

The abandonment of this proposed shield section is militarily not that significant. The utility of it was always slightly vague because it was ostensibly a �political reward� to East Europe for support of policy. Of course while an anti-missile shield placed anywhere can always have a potential value in the �great unknowns� war, it is understandable why the Russians interpreted it as hostile. It lacks military purposefulness in the grand scheme of �star wars shield building�. The required leap-frog in satellite and guidance technologies to meet the type of blanket protection envisaged by Ronald Regan is something the Chinese could take on, not obsolete Russians.

Russia�s only realistic response was to threaten to dust-off a few Cold War mobile launchers. However there is one large potential downside to this announcement. Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden are preaching different messages. Hilary wants to reset relations with Russia. Joe is backing Georgia�s fight for self-determination. What will Barack�s olive branch mean over winter during the annual scrap over Russian gas supplies?

The danger is it might reinforce Georgia�s determination to oppose Russia and anticipate NATO�s help. Russia could be expected to give something in return for Barack�s peace gesture. While no reciprocation is strictly necessary, the shield was never intended to be used against Russia, Joe Biden (and the wider public) could expect it.

When spring 2010 arrives, Europeans will have gone through another season of Russians appearing to mismanage their gas. The reality is Western Europe guzzles more of it and is not investing in sufficient domestic energy production for environmental reasons. Countries through which Russian gas pipes pass (e.g. Ukraine) and East European countries dependent on it are likely to continue defrauding Russia: payment defaults and cheating the meter. It is situation exacerbated by Western Europe�s blithe innocence. Prices are bid up higher than Russia�s closest neighbours can afford.

So Barack�s announcement does not address the underlying energy tensions in this region. Fundamentally the problem remains. It is the environmentalists, preventing renewal of much needed nuclear energy programs, who ruin any chance of peace. Simply put, Western Europe is robbing Eastern Europe of its cheap energy supplies and then blaming the Russians for being �mercantile� about it. If Georgia�s right to self-determination emerges with renewed vigour, Barack may find it difficult to ignore the argument he tried the �Clinton way� and Russia was unresponsive.

Nicholas

"What a childish comment."

Maybe a childish comment for UK lefties still stupidly starry-eyed about the comrades but probably not so childish for those who actually experienced the tanks first hand in Hungary and Prague. The boot of socialism is heavy and oppressive whatever form it takes, whether it's Gordon's quangocrat PC nannies or Russian tanks.

Dean

No, sorry, it's childish period. Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev brought the Cold War to an end in 1989, in case you'd forgotten. You don't have to be left wing to understand that, you just need to be awake.

There will always be a small minority who will insist on seeing Russia as communist; the same minority who accuse Obama of being a "commie sleeper" on Talk Radio shows. The rest of us just get on with our lives free of such paranoid delusions.

Nicholas

"The rest of us just get on with our lives free of such paranoid delusions."

Yeah, and that's why this country is in the state it is in.

Nicholas

And the Cold War might have ended in 1989 but that is when communist subversion in Britain just got going, culminating in their cloaked victory in 1997. You don't have to be right wing to understand that, you just need to be awake.

David Lindsay

So, probably no “defensive” missiles in Poland or the Czech Republic, after all. Very close to Iran as those countries obviously are, such location would in no sense have been an expression of hostility towards Russia. Would it? Russia understandably responded in kind and prepared to move her own missiles to within the old Kingdom of Prussia.

Obama should now make it clear that he wants nothing but peace with a country which, among so many other things, has done as both his new supporters across small town white America, and his bedrock supporters across black America, long to do, and restored the teaching of Christianity in schools.

KB

Mr Korski,

Do you even understand the Reagan speech you echo in the post's title?

But let's cut to the chase. Russia is happy, Poland is sad, and Nato is an alliance in name only.

How does it go again? Harmless as an enemy, treacherous as a friend.

DavidDP

"Nato is an alliance in name only."

If anything has resulted in that, it's the reast of NATO refusing to take up the slack in Afghanistan.

Certainly not due to a US president who reaffirmed that an attack on one is an attack on all.

lol

War is peace.

Britain's security interests revolve exclusively around Iran and Afghanistan.

Truth is lies.

crappy little country, crappy people in it

The Cold War is indeed over. But Russia is still an ideological enemy. The Leader of the Free World (such as it remains) shouldn't retreat before them. They need to change and conceed to us.

porkbelly

"what a childish comment"? I suppose the invasion of Georgia involved mopeds instead of tanks? And isn't it touching that Obama chose the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland to make the announcement? Once again the benighted Poles and Czechs are used as human currency as we "do business" with the tyrants.

Archie

I see very little evidence thus far - or at least since Brer Putin has been running the show - of the Russians doing the swords to ploughshares thing. Thus Obama's gambit is in truth a gamble. We shall see.

JohnAnt

OK, dimantle the rockets: Russia needs to be got onside. We need its business, resources, energy channels, strategic support.
OTOH, all these western pacification ploys never work, and Russia - which still seems only half a step away from KGB hardline communism - soon starts perversely supporting our enemies again.
So we then....etc etc.
And so it goes on.

THX1138

The Polish people like it:

"The result: A plurality think it's a "good decision for Poland," while only 31% think it's a bad decision.

The poll exposes what's long been a divide in those countries: The leaders don't want to appear weak vis-a-vis Russia and are focused on broad strategic questions; the people are often to their left on security matters."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/But_the_Polish_public_likes_it.html?showall

Reality and that damn librul bias again.

Herbert Thornton

Dean says - "......we need to decide who constitutes the greater threat - Russia or Islamic extremism?" and Strapworld asks - ".....am I alone in believing that the EU will raise the white flag to Russia and ask them to join and protect Europe? "

The answers, I think are depressing in the extreme.

The answer to Dean's question is clear - Russia is virtually no threat while Islamic extremist is a mortally dangerous threat.

And the answer to Strapworld's asking whether he is alone in believing that the EU will raise the white flag to Russia and ask them to join and protect Europe, is even more depressing because his belief is too optimistic and too late. Europe - or at least western Europe - has in fact already raised the white flag. But it has raised it not to Russia, but to Islam.