Poland

Boy oh boy, did Vlad the Impaler score big today. 

President Barack Obama on Thursday overhauled plans for a missile defence shield in eastern Europe, promising instead stronger, swifter defence systems to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.

In a move that may ease tensions with Moscow but spur regional fears of resurgent Kremlin influence, Obama said he had approved recommendations from U.S. military leaders to shift focus to defending against Iran's short and medium-term missile capabilities."This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defences against the threat of missile attack," Obama said in a brief statement on scrapping plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland and a related radar site in the Czech Republic

Moscow said it would welcome the decision to drop the program, which had complicated U.S. efforts to enlist Russian support over Afghanistan, Iran and nuclear arms control.{...}

The new plan is to send Aegis destroyers to defend Europe against any rogue nuclear threats. Yeah, that'll work.  Like Russia wouldn't take issue with them cruising the Baltic. 

{insert slap to forehead here}

Failing to earn big points in the bonus round, the nimrods in the Obama adminstration apparently are unable to bookmark Wikipedia, because on this day seventy years ago, Stalin invaded Poland from the east, creating a second front for the beleaguered Polish troops who were doing their damndest to hold off the Nazis. 

Now, seventy years later, we're well out of the Cold War, but we have a ruler in Russia who seemingly longs for it, and enjoys rattling his saber and his natural gas supplies to get what he wants, signalling a return to Russian hegemony in what he considers Russia's historical sphere of influence.  President Bush puts forward a missile defense program, to, ostensibly,protect NATO members in eastern Europe from a rogue attack from Iran. The added benefit of the program is that no matter what its intended design, Russia doesn't like it.  These countries are its former satellites; part of Russia's former sphere of influence, and if Russia can't have them back in the fold, as it were, Vlad certainly, at the very least, does not want western influence in his backyard.  Then Vlad goes and invades Georgia. It's no coinicidence that Poland, which had been dragging its feet on the program, signed on a few days later.

Now, a little over a year later, our rube of a president, ostensibly to gain access to Russian train tracks for the shipping of supplies into Afghanistan, to avoid Taliban-infested routes in Pakistan, dumps this program entirely.

Just how far does a Ginsu go when shoving it into the back of a Czech or a Pole? Can you get that puppy all the way through their bodies, or is it just a flesh wound which will heal easily? Either way, don't expect either country to be on board with anything the US does for quite some time---as in until a new administration is elected.

What doesn't make sense is that this is, purportedly, for Russian rail access into Afghanistan.  THIS is the purported end game? It doesn't make much sense because the give and take is not proportional.  And as much as I would like to think Obama really is this stupid, he's got decent foreign policy analysts on his team who would prevent him from making such a deal. No, the deal only makes sense if the US is getting something else in return---like, say, Russia's cooperation at the UN Security Council when it comes to Iranian sanctions? Bigger, badder sanctions they've been blocking in the Security Council for some time because they're making too much loot selling Iran nuclear "power" components.

Next week, Obama planning to be the first US president to actually chair a meeting of the Security Council---"devoted to nuclear proliferation and disarmament."  Did he give up missile defense, in effect giving in to Russia (and Teheran, by the way), so he could make a bigger, bolder splash at the UN next week? Did Obama throw Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus to bolster his own international statesman whimsies?  Would he really go that far? 

Yep. I believe he would.  The guy's ego knows no bounds. 

If this is the case---that this move is, essentially, laying the ground work for Obama's big UN day next week---one wonders what other concessions will be announced in coming days.  There will have to be other concessions, because Russia isn't the only country who's been dragging their feet on Iranian sanctions: the Chinese have been blocking sanctions, as well. What is Obama going to give up to the Chinese to get them to play ball?  A lessening of pressure to get the PRC to control its neighbor, North Korea?  The removal of hasty and recent tarriffs on Chinese tires?  A withdrawal of the Navy from the Taiwanese Straits? Do tell! 

Just how much of "this" is Obama going to give up for "that"?  I suppose it all depends just how much Obama wants to become the international statesman of our time. Which, I gather, is rather a lot.  

Here's your quote of the day from Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsyn:

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them." Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

This is like telling a woman who's grabbed a meat cleaver to prevent herself from being raped, that because she had the temerity to try and defend herself from a fate worse than death, she is, basically, asking for it.

Why, you finally get with the program and go out and buy a gun. 

Or in Poland's case, you let the US set up their missile defense system in your backyard, and get a battery of Patriot missiles in return. 

They've been working on this deal for over a year now, and if you think the current events in Georgia didn't have anything to do with Poland's hasty reversal, you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, need a good lesson in geopolitical theory.  

Poland's government changed during the winter and the new Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, wasn't too keen on the deal, set up originally by President Kacyzinski, and his twin brother, the former Prime Minister, who are more than a little whacko about the threat from Russia and have put Polish society through an anti-commie witchhunt for the past several years.  (yeah, Polish politics are that confusing.)  If Tusk was going to do it at all, he wanted more bang for his buck, to make it worthwhile to antagonize Russia in such a way---and he got it, in the form of Patriot missiles, and a mutual defense agreement, wherein the US will come to their aid if Poland suddenly gets in trouble, above and beyond any NATO promises to do the same.  Of course, the Poles are obliged to come to the US's defense, should, you know, someone decide to invade here, but you get the gist.  What has happened in Georgia has them running scared.

There's just one thing, though, that gave me a good chuckle out of all this.  Dana Perino, White House Spokeswoman, said that this deal, "was not an attempt to antagonize Russia."  BAH!  Who are you trying to kid, lady?  Of course it was intended to antagonize Russia.  Forget the cover story about setting up missile defense in Poland to protect us from Iran, this is all about Russia, baby.  And it's about time the Russians learned they're going to have to pay a price for what they did in Georgia.  That means a missile defense base in Poland, and in the Czech Republic.  That means Ukraine will shortly be ushered into NATO.  That means Russia will be kicked out of the G8, and won't be allowed into the WTO.  That means, potentially, a shortage of western investment into building up Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, which is probably just fine by BP, Royal Dutch Shell and any number of other oil companies due to Putin's tendency to let them build things up and then appropriate their hard work for the benefit of Rosneft and Gazprom, the Russian state oil and gas companies.  The days when the former Soviet satellites were unable to rely upon the West for help in dealing with Russia's imperialistic whims are over with.  It should be interesting to see just how pissed off Vlad gets at this development.   But he brought it on himself.  He, apparently, needs reminding that what he thought was his backyard isn't his anymore.  

As a related aside, it's kind of funny how the past couple of days have brought that red-headed stepchild of international relations theory, the Domino Theory,  back into favorable use.