"Robin" Medvedev gets red-breasted over missile defense

Is it unduly speculative to infer that Medvedev's newfound tough-guy demeanor is early fallout from the WikiLeaks cable dump? From The New York Times online:

MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev, expressing continued wariness over the prospect of military cooperation with his country’s former cold war adversaries, warned on Tuesday that a failure by Russia and the West to reach an agreement on missile defense could provoke a new arms race. [snip]

The following alternatives await us in the next 10 years,” Mr. Medvedev told an audience of Russia’s top leaders gathered at the Kremlin. “Either we reach an agreement on missile defense and create a joint mechanism for cooperation or, if we do not succeed in entering into a constructive understanding, there will begin a new arms race.”

In the absence of cooperation, he said, Russia would be prepared to deploy “new means of attack.”

Boehner gives the game away on missile shield in Eastern Europe

John Boehner's denunciation of Obama's cancellation of the missile shield deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic shows what the plan was always really about:

“Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader. “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world.”

Note the sequencing of threats in this knee-jerk reaction. What does that say about Bush's repeated protestations that the shield had nothing to do with Russia?

And don't expect any subtlety from John McCain, enabler-in-chief of that Georgian fool's Saakashvili's furnishing of a pretext for Russian intervention in 2008:

“I fear the administration’s decision will do just that [undercut allies],” Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival in last year’s presidential election, said Thursday, adding that the decision came “at a time when Eastern European nations are increasingly wary of renewed Russian adventurism.”

The Poles and Czechs, meanwhile, seem to have been concerned mainly to get American boots on their soil, whatever the pretext. They're about as worried about Iran as we are over incoming meteoroids.

The decision's possible downside -- raising Polish and Czech anxieties, perhaps emboldening Russia with an unforced 'concession' over a program that allegedly had nothing to do with them--does highlight what may be the signature challenge of the Obama Administration: unraveling bad policies that entail real commitments to various parties.

Just what did Obama commit to on missile defense?

In his Prague speech calling for an end to nuclear weapons, Obama seemed to announce that the U.S. would go forward with missile defense deployment if Iran's "nuclear and ballistic missile activity" continues:

So let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies. The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven. (Applause.) If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed. (Applause.)

Do we have a missile defense system that is cost effective and proven? Here's what's last month's GAO Report had to say:

While MDA [Missile Defense Agency] completed several key tests that demonstrated enhanced performance of the BMDS [Ballistic Missile Defense System], all elements of the system had test delays and shortfalls. Overall, testing achieved less than planned For example, none of the six Director's test knowledge points established by MDA for 2008 were achieved. Poor performing target missiles have been a persistent problem. Testing shortfalls have slowed the validation of models and simulations, which are needed to assess the system's overall perfromance. Consequently, the performance of the BMDS as a whole can not yet be determined.

What the GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that the MDEB [Missile Defense Executive Board] assess how the transparency and accountability of MDA acquisitions can be strengthened without losing the benefits of MDA's existing flexibilities. Meanwhile, MDA should improve its cost and test baselines; tie modeling and simulation needs into test objectives; provide more time to analyze tests; better coordinate with independent testers; synchronize development, manufacturing, and fielding with testing and validation; complete a key developmental test; and strengthen the basis for capability declarations. DOD agreed with 10 of the 11 recommendations and partially agreed with one.

Obama is plainly not ending missile defense development. Whether he'll deploy a system in the Czech Republic and Poland any time soon, however, seems dependent on many variables.