No Missile Shield for You!

Today, the U.S. announced that it is scrapping the Bush era missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and replacing it with a different system to first be deployed aboard ships and potentially then in Southern Europe.  This move will likely appeal to Russia who had vehemently opposed the Bush plan and liked to do some sabre rattling about it.  There is no word on whether or not this move was accompanied by a large shipment of vodka and beets to St. Petersburg. 



The new installation of the small SM-3 missiles in the Mediterranean will likely be focused on stopping short or intermediate range missiles from Iran which can easily threaten the stability of the region.  However, this move could threaten the comprehensive talks that Iran had previously agreed to hold.  While tensions have eased slightly with Iran, there is still a large amount of hostility between them and the U.S. and placing a missile shield near them does not threaten them directly so there is little to lose, it will likely only irk the Iranians since a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic could potentially blunt their missiles too.  Think of it as more a lateral move.

However, this is where Russia comes in.  On the Russian front, this move will curry some favor.  The U.S. just side stepped out of Russia's path and prevented a clash.  Russia isn't what it once was, but there are some issues where we need their cooperation.  This is where we see Iran again!  Russia is a massive trading partner with Iran.  They can apply pressure to Iran and help us with our end goals, namely to stop Iran's nuclear program.  A simple re-shuffling of the pieces on the board lines up huge potential gains.  In the words of Denzel Washington in Training Day, "this shit's chess, not checkers!"