The recent ramping up of rhetoric from Putin re: the proposed missile defense shield to be installed in Eastern EU is really not a new issue. This Cold War redux is really just kabuki theater for the masses.
The Bush Administration decided in 2002 that, like the Geneva Convention, the ABM treaty was 'quaint' and withdrew. The Russians responded by withdrawing from StartII. Bush has been pushing for more idiotic 'Star Wars' fantasy missile defense since he was appointed by the Supreme Court, but really all of the impetus driving this push to use missile defense shows a lack of State Department power -- or maybe a shift in focus.
This ignorant person who said this:
"The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous, and everybody knows it,"
is none other than Condi Rice, who cannot tell the difference between an extant entity, gone for more than 15 years and what is today's Russia.
Condi's faux pas calling out a dead nation not withstanding, any analyst worth their salt knows that placement of missile defense assets in Eastern Europe cannot stop launches made against the US from Russia. If the Russians were to launch missiles, these 'Soviet missile' trajectories would be mostly from land based sites over the North Pole. Very few Russian missile launch sites are located in Western Russia.
And of course, this whole dustup .. that greatly exaggerated "blow up" of Putin in the press is really all for show. Putie know it. Condi knows that Putie knows it, Putie knows that Condi knows that he knows it. [arghh .. channeling Don Rumsfeld makes my head hurt].
The facts are simple and clear.
Yes Condi is right, at least from the concept that 10 interceptors pose no threat .. but she is a fool for feeding the rhetoric of the Cold War back into this discussion. .. (or perhaps it's all quite intentional, this ratcheting up of 'Soviet' dastardly deeds, a diversionary tactic to rally the Floyd R Turbo set into a new rant of anti-Red fervor as George and Dick's poll numbers dally in the teens.)
Any "missile defense" system placed in Eastern EU, ostensibly for use against Iranian missile launches has got to be one of the biggest jokes ever made .. if Iran [or anyone] who wants to attack the United States or Western EU with a small number of warheads, they will simply put the weapon on a ship, or have them carried by truck through our porous borders.
Developing defenses against intercontinental missile capability by small states is the last thing we should be concerned about. The absurdity of wasting resources and money for this exercise is quite clear.
So the question is, what is the motivation for these events? What's the "back story" feeding all of this?
Is it just breathtakingly arrogant pandering to the military industrial complex of companies? Are companies that make these missile defense systems behind the flexing of this "renewed interest" to install anti-ballistic missiles? Certainly that is part of it. 'Star Wars' has always been a multi-billion dollar cash cow for Raytheon, BAE, Lockheed and others.
Clearly, this temper tantrum by Putin is his need to make himself rise above the charges of the police state that is emerging from the failure of Russian democracy. He will be seen as 'defending Russia', and it's useful for his domestic consumption.
But clearly, and this is the key part, the Bush administration has done everything in it's power to kill Russian democracy, because a democratically ruled Russia is a real economic threat to multi-national corporations. It's much better to keep the Russians under the rule of a dictator, under a faux democracy; it weakens Russian economic structure and makes handling of economic issues with the West much easier as they become simply part of a political agenda. What better way to bankrupt them again, but to have them chase the 'arms race' in response to US arrogance?
The bottom line for this missile defense proposal is that it is a massive waste of money, a fraud perpetrated upon not just the American taxpayer, but every person on the planet. Resources that could be used to make the world a more humane and safer place are being diverted to line the pockets of bloated perverse pigs that run the military industrial complex.
If one steps back and looks carefully, one can see the State Department simply protecting multi-national corporate interests. This has become their primary function, and it started more than 25 years ago.
Putin is, I think a willing player in this whole fiasco. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he is being fed a script written by someone in Condi's State Department.