Intriguing

Why Obama Scrapped Missile Defense

Was he caving or freeing America’s hand?

Obama is getting it from the right wing for his decision to scrap missile-defense in Eastern Europe: He appears to have scrapped it without having extracted much from Russia in return. So why did he do it? Marc Ambinder offers an explanation: “The Obama administration believes that Iran is a much larger threat than Russia; it believes that money ought to be spent to deter Iran's likely capabilities; it believes that overmatching deterrence technology would encourage Iran to get up to speed more quickly; it assumes that, by locating a radar station and missile battery up north, tensions with Russia will increase; and that, if anything, removing the missiles gives the Russians one less way to avoid the pressure for them to act against Iran. From the standpoint of security, the U.S. and NATO actually have a freer hand to respond to any provocation by Russia.”