I've always felt that the Bush Administration's late-term unveiling of a plan to build a missile shield in Poland/Czech Republic was one of the stupider moves America made in their long, complicated post-cold war policy games with Russia. It was a move that would have accomplished nothing except to further complicate matters with the Russians, and the blatantly obvious lie about the need to protect Europe from missiles that Iran doesn't have and won't have for a long time, even if they really worked at it, really didn't help matters. The Russians' help on various foreign policy problems would be immense if both countries decided to stop playing their pointless games based on something that ended 20 years ago

Hillary and the Obama administration have really showed their commitment to resetting relations with Russia, something that i had assumed was just lip-service. We're one step closer to shedding these stupid Cold War leftovers.

What remains to be seen is how Russia will reciprocate in an appropriate sign of good will, if at all.

(note, it's not really a Bush bash, as these stupid post cold-war containment games go back to the Clinton administration, the missile shield was just one such bonehead move as part of something that was around longer than Bush himself)

Good.

Obama goverment showed real "class" by sending the news to Poland on 17th September which is 70th anniversary of treacherous Soviet Union attack on Poland in WWII (seriously how dumb do you have to be to not even check calendar before doing it? )

Funny thing is he traded Anti-Missile Shield for nothing becouse Russia will brake any agreements they have whenever they find it usefull.

Russia have said they are delighted by this gesture of good will, I think it will certainly be reciprocated and bring the two countries closer.

Well done president Obama .

Hah! Reminds me of somebody else I know.

Obama essentially is giving an FU to Eastern Europe and something for nothing to Putin. This also bodes badly for Netanyahu's Israel and the shield's potential defense of that nation.

He is taking an idealist (not realist) approach at a world without nuclear weapons where everyone can go to the UN and talk it out and sing kumbayah. This is a load of crap as the world will always be filled with evil bastards who wish to harm other nations with nuclear or conventional attacks.

BTW, he did this on the same day that the IAEA came out with a report (they later redacted - maybe a Rahm Emmanuel phone call?) that stated that Iran has the capability and the will to create the bomb and deliver it.  http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090918_1612.php

Israel is more than capable of defending itself against anyone in that region that would have cause to try and hurt them. The real problem is keeping Israel from going out and trying to hurt them, other way around. Netanyahu has shown more restraint than i would grant from anybody from Likud, but to claim that Israel might need some sort of help isn't going to go very far.

Given that the missile shield hasn't even been proven to work, I think putting your faith in it is more idealist than realist.

Even if it did work, the sure-fire counter is to launch enough missiles that the system can't cope. Given that the world is "filled with evil bastards who wish to harm other nations" (impressive fearmongering, considering no nuclear attack has been made in 65 years), do you really want to encourage every nuclear power in the world to stockpile a nice big arsenal before they feel secure? Isn't your realist self concerned that an arms race between the nine (nine of them now!) nuclear powers in the world would increase the risk of a warhead falling into the wrong hands and being delivered in a manner which no missile defense system can counter?

Actually yes it has been proven to work, there have been dozens of successful intercepts.  Unless you mean proven to work as in "in a real life scenario"..in which case..I'm quite happy we haven't had a chance to find out yet =P

As for it's initial shortcomings....well the first telephone network was hard to hear over, didn't accept many customers, and probably failed all the time.  Now you can get comparatively excellent call clarity, billions of customers, and we have a robust network with no single point of failure.

Technology doesn't sprout to full form, it has to be incrementally improved.  Trying to abandon it because it doesn't provide every feature you want right away is how you stagnate tech and find yourself falling behind other nations.

In any case the GMD system is not 100% foolproof, but it does provide a better than 0% chance that you can shoot down the missiles coming after you.  In fact based on recent tests since 2006 it is probably in the 70-75% range.  And those odds compound in your favor when you have multiple launch sites.

As for overwhelming it....this is true, but that argument actually undermines your position.  The shield was supposed to protect against rogue nations...not to protect against Russia.  Russia could overwhelm it..rogue nations could not.  

PS - It is insane to celebrate this move until we know what the US got for it.

I agree with Sqrl - we don't know if this move compromises the security of Eastern Europe, or truly helps calm relations.

Russia has one of the worst records for subverting elections, and influencing their former states after the collapse of their Soviet empire. I don't know if placating them is really the right decision, given that these countries WANTED the missile shield.

10 years from now we may say 'Thank God for Obama' or 'Oh God, Obama has killed us all' - We'll just need to wait and see.