This post is jointly authored by Tanya and Charlie.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave with Osama, you probably know by now that President Obama announced on Thursday that he was ending the so-called “missilie shield” plan devised by his predecessor.

Timing is everything in life, but it looks like the Pentagon and the White House had a meeting of minds. Updated intelligence made it pretty clear that Iran will not soon have the capacity to launch inter-continental ballistic missiles on the U.S.

This was Obama’s first major national security decision outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it further reinforced the widespread perception that he is a hard-headed realist when it comes to foreign policy.  That was further reinforced by the fact that Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41’s national security advisor and the most eminent realist in either party, quickly praised the decision:

I strongly approve of President Obama’s decision regarding missile defense deployments in Europe. I believe it advances U.S. national security interests, supports our allies, and better meets the threats we face.

Setting aside the lovely press release-ease for a moment, Scowcroft couldn’t have done much more to help Obama at a time when most conservatives were accusing him of appeasement (more on that later).

But if Scowcroft liked it, the Russians liked it even more.  In response, they announced that it would not deploy its Iskander tactical missiles in Kaliningrad — which happens to be just a short flight to Berlin and other popular tourist destinations.Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said he “valued” the U.S. decision;  Prime Minister-for-life Vladimir Putin was equally celebratory, saying that he hoped that Obama’s “correct and brave decision [would] be be followed by others.”

The Obama team is not abandoning missile defense altogether; it remains concerned about Iran’s short- and medium-range missile capacity.  The White House argues that its new approach will be “stronger, swifter, smarter,” with plans to start deploying existing SM-3 interceptors using the sea-based Aegis system in 2011.  An improved version will follow in 2015, using both ship- and land-based systems.

Turkey is one possible home for the 2015 deployment.  It remains a strategic player within NATO but it also is friendly with Iran.  Coincidentally, Turkey happens to be shopping for long range missile defense systems at the moment, which I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with their candidacy. Unless, of course, it does.

(One brief aside:  does anyone else note the irony here?  Back in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union deployed missiles to Cuba in part because the United States had deployed missiles in Turkey.  Ultimately, the crisis was resolved when the two countries agreed on a quid pro quo withdrawal while denying publicly that they were doing any such thing.  Now, nearly fifty years later, the Russians are happy to see missiles redeployed to Turkey.  Somewhere, Khrushchev and Kennedy are laughing.)

The one surprise is that Albania — yes Albania — is a candidate to host some of the missiles.  Not only is Albania now a member of NATO (something that somehow escaped the notice of almost everyone but Albanians), it has 362 kilometers of coastline and four cities with the capacity to host American cruiser and destroyers.

Albania is eager to join the EU , hoping that its membership in NATO will help it make its case (not that that has helped Turkey, which has been a member of NATO since 1952 and is nowhere near EU membership).   Sali Berisha, Albania’s ambitious prime minister (and a former communist), no doubt would be delighted to host NATO ships in its ports to shipborne Aegis systems.

The only person not happy is Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who faces a tough reelection battle next year and who had trumpeted the missile shield as evidence of his administration’s ability to defend Poland against Russia.  Fakt, a right-wing Polish tabloid sympathetic to Kacynski, screamed “Betrayal! The USA has sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back.”  Unfortunately for Kaczynski, the Polish people don’t seem to share such sentiments — a new poll released Saturday shows that 48 percent of respondents thought that the Administration’s decision was good for Poland, and only 31 percent disagreed.

The Czechs — the other supposed beneficiaries — were largely indifferent to the news that they would not have a missile shield.  This may be in part because the decision to deploy missiles to the Czech Republic was largely designed to reinforce the Bush claim that the system wasn’t aimed at the Russians.

One of the best parts of the White House’s decision was its work behind the scenes to coordinate the decision with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.  Shortly after the U.S. announcement, Rasmussen called for a new strategic partnership that would entail a “joint review” with Moscow of global security challenges within the NATO framework:

Mr. Rasmussen called on Moscow for a “genuine new beginning in our relationship, in our own interests and that of the entire international community”.  Referring to the US missile defense rethink, he said “the new plans will make capabilities ready sooner than the previous plans and will provide us with broader coverage.”

“There is no reason to fear [that] these plans will weaken the defense of any ally. “Improved relations between NATO and Russia will also be to the benefit of our eastern allies,” he said.

Meanwhile, back in Teapartystan, neoconservatives and 9/12 activists came together in a rare show of unity to denounce the White House decision as appeasement.  Bloggers and politicians alike dragged out the increasingly hoary Munich metaphor, accusing Obama of caving to both the Russians and the Iranians.

John McCain — the same man who, one year ago, was willing to use U.S. force to prop up a corrupt regime in Georgia — wasn’t much better.  He called Obama’s plan “untested” (as opposed to the vaporware that the Bushies were pushing) despite the fact that it is the same Aegis missile technology currently being used on the — wait for it — USS John McCain.

In the end, Obama chose pragmatism, deciding to abandon a fantastic scheme in favor of engagement with Russia — and at the same time, sustaining efforts to contain Iran’s missile capacity. To put it another way, Obama understood the distinction between strategy –building a stable relationship with Russia — and tactics — countering the threat of Iranian medium- and short-range missiles.  That’s something the Bush Administration never really got the hang of in its eight years.

Photo:  Public domain via Wikipedia

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