Obama Cancels Missile Defense
THe Globe and Mail (among others) is reporting that Obama has canceled the missile defense systems that were going into eastern Europe, while at the same time getting concessions from Russia on the war in Afghanistan. I would love to hear from my more wonkish friends on what they think the repercussions of this will be. I, personally, have never believed that a late-boost/mid-range missile defense system would be viable anyway, but many of my friends have held the opinion that the purpose of the system wasn’t to defend against rogue states with ICBMs, but to cement out relationship to Eastern Europe and require us to come to their aid in the case of Russian aggression. The Globe and Mail article certainly suggests that. The Christian Science Monitor thinks it is just a cost benefit analysis. And while it is nice to see us trying to work with Russia instead of just antagonizing them, it also seems like cutting it off could have been done with a bit more grace. They both noted that picking the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland for the announcement was poor.
Thoughts?