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The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War -- the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line. The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress, with insiders from both parties arguing over whether the George W. Bush or the Obama administration is responsible.

Poles protest US Stalin memorial plan23.11.2009 11:06 The Polish community in the United States is outraged by a plan to honour Josef Stalin by placing his bust on a pedestal at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia.  According to William McIntosh, the director of the Bradford museum, which is coordinating the project, the Soviet dictator deserves to be acknowledged alongside Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt has he was an ally of the US after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The plans have met with protests from Polish war veterans in New York.  President of the Kosciuszko Foundation,...

SINGAPORE: A major pact within tantalizing reach, President Barack Obama aims to nudge forward an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brought Obama to Singapore, but he is focusing on individual meetings Sunday with Medvedev and with Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world's largest Muslim nation and Obama's home as a boy. The US-Russia meeting takes place as the nations seek a successor to a Cold War-era agreement. Obama planned another milestone: joining a larger meeting that includes the leader of military-ruled Myanmar. Obama is sure to face criticism...

Poland has demanded that US troops be based on Polish soil in the wake of Russian war games which simulated a nuclear attack and invasion. Radek Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, said he was alarmed by recent military exercises conducted by the Russian army in Belarus, a country that borders Poland, and wanted the US military as a counterweight. "We would like to see US troops stationed in Poland to serve as a shield against Russian aggression," he said. "If you can still afford it, we need some strategic reassurance." Despite assurances given by US Vice President Joe Biden last month...

Cold War: The White House has announced our absence at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, Russia has been practicing a nuclear invasion of an abandoned Poland. The Berlin Wall has been a famous backdrop for American presidents sounding the battle cry of liberty in the struggle against tyranny. It was there that John F. Kennedy expressed our solidarity with the encircled residents of that outpost of freedom with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner." And it was there that Ronald Reagan, with a defiant "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," voiced our...

Capitalism and democracy have lost popularity in the former Soviet republics of Eastern and Central Europe, where many people felt better off economically under communism, a poll showed Monday. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, research by the Pew Research Center showed the percentage of people approving of democracy was markedly lower in the former Soviet bloc compared to a similar 1991 poll.

As the United States and its allies haggle with Iran over its nuclear program, Moscow has fueled Western unease about its military links to Tehran by pledging to continue selling arms to the Islamic republic. This has raised speculation that it may brush aside the strident objections of the United States and Israel and supply Iran with advanced S-300PMU surface-to-air missiles that would greatly enhance its defenses against airstrikes. The Russians, who have rejected the proposed imposition of economic sanctions on Iran as "counterproductive," are keeping the waters muddied with contradictory and ambiguous statements regarding the S-300s. On Wednesday, Russia's...

US army bases will appear on the Black Sea Coast – in Bulgaria and Romania. About $50 million will be assigned to build the base in Romania, and the Pentagon plans to spend $60 million more for the same purpose in Bulgaria. The Romanian base is expected to be put in operation in 2010, whereas the second one will most likely be launched in 2011 or 2012. Over 4,000 US military men are expected to serve at the two bases: 1,600 in Romania and 2,500 in Bulgaria. The authorities of the two nations expect that the US military men will...

START 'cheating' Republicans in the Senate are gearing up to battle the Obama administration over the high-priority plan to finish a new arms-control treaty with Russia before the end of the year.

If only the world matched President Obama’s rosy image of it. Perhaps then pre-emptive concessions to other nations, in the hope of prompting reciprocation, might make sense. Alas, the world doesn’t work that way. And nothing demonstrates this more than Moscow’s increasingly problematic position on Iran, despite the White House’s “goodwill.” This sorry lesson began last month, when the president unilaterally scrapped plans to deploy an Eastern European missile-defense shield meant to take out incoming Iranian missiles. The decision broke a Bush administration pledge to US allies in Poland and the Czech Republic. But Obama officials spun it as a...

Washington is "concerned"

Vladimir Putin, No Sanctions on Iran: Obama Sold Out Poland for Nothing By Beth Shaw It appears that Barack Obama sold out Poland for nothing. In spite of his preemptively giving in to Russia and promising to not use a missile shield to protect Poland and the Czech Republic, Vladimir Putin is saying no to sanctions on Iran. After all, how can we be absolutely 100% certain they are going to nuke us! Let’s just wait and see before we do anything. It seems the only preventative measures the United States can take against our enemies anymore is to give...

--snip--The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and "reset" buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.

HILLARY CLINTON’S words of support for Georgia during her visit this week to Moscow did little to calm fears in Tbilisi about Russia’s intentions in the turbulent Caucasus mountains. Two of Russia’s most powerful men sent shivers through Tbilisi during the US secretary of state’s stay in Moscow, with statements that fuelled worries the Kremlin’s fight with rebels in its own restive Caucasus republics could spill into neighbouring Georgia. The struggle between Moscow’s security forces and militants, once confined to Chechnya, is equally intense in two other Russian regions, Dagestan and Ingushetia, where police and soldiers come under daily attack...

KAZAN, Russia — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday visited Kazan, the capital of Russia's predominantly Muslim Tatarstan region, lauding it as an example of multi-ethnic tolerance and peace. .... Over half of the region's population are Tatars, a Muslim Turkic people who live alongside a large ethnic Russian Orthodox Christian population and other minorities. Clinton, donning a yellow headscarf and taking off her shoes in line with Islamic custom, visited the gigantic Kul Sharif mosque in the Kazan Kremlin alongside the regional leader Mintimer Shaimiyev. "You are well known as someone who has fostered religious tolerance. It's...

Yes, I wish that this was a satire piece, but unfortunately it appears that this is real. President Obama's Administration is going to allow Russia to inspect our nuclear facilities-- within the United States. This is an unprecedented move that damages US national security. Not only does it lift the veil of secrecy, but if Russia decided to sell the secret information to terrorists or rogue states, attacks could follow. This is a disgrace.

MOSCOW (AP) - A top Russian security official says Moscow reserves the right to conduct pre-emptive nuclear strikes to safeguard the country against aggression on both a large and a local scale, according to a newspaper interview published Wednesday. Presidential Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev also singled out the U.S. and NATO, saying Moscow's Cold War foes still pose potential threats to Russia despite what he called a global trend toward local conflicts. The interview appeared in the daily Izvestia during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, as U.S. and Russian negotiators try to hammer out...

Washington will tone down its criticism of Russia's human rights record in order to win Kremlin backing for possible sanctions against Iran, it has been claimed. It is the latest in a number of concessions the US has made to Moscow in order to improve relations and encourage co-operation on international issues. The plan emerged as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited Russia to discuss a range of issues including Iran's rogue nuclear programme. Mrs Clinton's trip was part of what Washington is calling a "reset" with Moscow, a new more constructive relationship with the Kremlin that President...

His Arrogance, Hussein Obama WASHINGTON — While Russia's president congratulated President Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Republicans see the award as so outrageous that they're using it to raise campaign money. Obama won the prize "for awesomeness," says the mocking GOP fundraising letter. Obama's honor shows "how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become," says the letter, signed by Michael S. Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had a different view. He said the award will encourage further U.S.-Russian cooperation. "I hope this decision would serve as an additional incentive...

There is nothing new under the sun: and I mean, nothing. It is a point brought home to us with increasing force by the expansion of the Internet. Conceive of an "original idea." Now, select two or more keywords suggested by it. Use them as search terms, and you will soon find that, say, 438,000 other people have entertained said "original idea," and a dozen are currently blogging on it. Before beginning today's column, my search terms were "Gorbachev" and "Obama." Yes: a lot of people have entertained the idea, that Mikhail Gorbachev was to the late great Soviet Union,...

After Russia invaded the Nation of Georgia last year, Senator John McCain quickly condemned the action by the Russians, and declared that we are all "Georgians" today. Considering we have had at least two freedom movements in the past eight months which have been ignored by Obama, that should have been reason enough to support McCain in the Presidential election. Obama at first blamed both the Russians and the Georgians in an utter disregard for the Nation of Georgia, a small yet staunch ally of the United States, after several days of being called out by John McCain, Obama quickly...

Today Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev told students at Pittsburgh University that he did have input on the president's decision. What's important is Barack Obama listened to my position. Perhaps it was part of the basis for his decision. We are learning to listen to each other. This is a change from the previous administration. I think these are bold, courageous decisions, to change decisions of previous administrations concerning foreign policy. This was a complex decision. I tried to put myself in his shoes. It would not have been easy for me.

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

It's the Obama administration that has pressed the "reset button" on relations with Russia, scrapped plans for a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe, and toned down the rhetoric on NATO expansion. But it seems Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin still pines for Obama's predecessor. At his annual meeting with academics, think-tankers, and journalists, Putin barely mentioned Obama but "repeatedly expressed fondness for his friend 'George,' " says Cliff Kupchan, a Russia analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy. "He clearly has a personal softness for George Bush," says Kupchan, who attended the meeting. Why the nostalgia? After all, Bush put in...

Iran on Monday welcomed Washington's decision to cancel plans to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe. "The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes any act that causes a reduction in the conventional arms race," Hassan Qashqavi, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, was quoted as saying by Iranian PressTV news agency. According to the report, Qahqavi rejected the claim that the system was meant to face an Iranian missile threat, calling it a baseless political claim. "Such analyses have no realistic or evidential basis, for, from the beginning, adopting the claim of a missile threat from the Islamic Republic...

Vicenza, Italy. President Obama’s decision to cancel our European ground-based missile defense system will prove to be very costly and his public rationale -- changed intelligence and improved technologies -- is far from the whole truth. This is a geopolitical disaster and risks our security as well. Last year, President Bush said “Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to produce nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles of increasing range that could deliver them.” His administration successfully negotiated with Poland and the Czech Republic to install a ground-based anti-missile defense system in those countries to counter the accelerating Iranian threat.

Poland and the Czech Republic, which only shed Moscow's yoke 20 years ago, had hoped that the missile shield would provide tangible, if symbolic, evidence of the United States' commitment to their interests and the defence of the region. Now deprived of that, many in Central Europe fear that Russia's influence in the region will go unchecked. This has rekindled latent fears across Central Europe that its security has been sacrificed at the altar of great power politics.

For the Czech prime minister Jan Fischer, the news came in a call hastily placed by President Barack Obama, shortly after midnight on Thursday in Prague. In Warsaw, his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk initially declined to answer the phone from the White House - as he guessed the purpose, from the unusual timing, and wanted to prepare a response. Mr Obama last week unveiled the most dramatic national security reversal of his presidency by scrapping his predecessor George W Bush's planned anti-ballistic missile shield in eastern Europe. With this volte face, the Obama administration has brought the curtain firmly down...

US President Barack Obama denied that "paranoid" objections from Russia influenced his decision to abandon plans by the former Bush administration to site a missile defence system in Eastern Europe. "Russia had always been paranoid about this, but George [W] Bush was right, this wasn't a threat to them," Mr Obama said in an interview on CBS show Face the Nation, days before he is set to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the United Nations. "This program will not be a threat to them. So my task here was not to negotiate with the Russians," Mr Obama said, responding...

Scrapping of U.S. missile defense plans hands big victory to Russia's new czar. Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven." On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The "courageous" Czechs and...

More than two dozen Ukrainian intellectuals are appealing to U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders, warning of a greater Kremlin threat. Specifically, the group of influential Ukrainians is calling for stronger security guarantees to protect Ukraine from Russia, whose leaders they accuse of meddling in Ukrainian affairs.....In an open letter made public on Sept. 10, the authors expressed fears that Russia could use military force against Ukraine. They called on Western leaders to hold an international conference to provide guarantees for Ukraine’s security.

What Putin thinks of Obama

It was the worst thing that the American government could do. This decision was announced on 17 September, when Poland was commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Invasion Day, when the Soviet Union allied with Nazis and stabbed our country in the back. This was an effect of the Nazi- Soviet Pact that was signed on 28 August in Moscow. After this day, all dreams about resisting Hitler's invasion perished -- two evil empires combined their powers to destroy our freedom and sovereignty. At the same day, 70 years later, Obama bowed to the Kremlin. It was something that...

Treason!   USA sold us to Russia.   ( http://www.efakt.pl/Zdrada-USA-sprzedaly-nas-Rosji,artykuly,52626,1.html ) (translation from Polish)[The end of anti-missile shield! Americans break promises. There will be neither a US base in Poland nor a radar in Czech Rep.What about our security now?! We've been left on the thin ice.] The strategic ally? The solid rock of our national security? The end of illusions. United States, which could always rely on us, turned its back to us. The President of USA just threw to the garbage bin  the project of building the Anti-Missile Shield in Poland and Czech Rep. The powerful military fascility could strengthen our...

The gist of the article is this: Obama's line of reasoning may be off but the outcome is still useful from an isolationist perspective. Isolationist do not want USA in Poland or anywhere else for that matter. Then we argue that, if you have to have an ally with someone, may as well make it Russia, because at least they fight. Has a cool picture (from Wikimedia) of a bunch of Russian soldiers at Stalingrad with Poposhovs.

Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven."

The very worst foreign-policy move an American president can make is to reveal a willingness to back down to an aggressive tyrant. The second-worst move is to back the wrong horse during an internal dispute in a foreign county — or, for that matter, to back any horse without gathering all of the pertinent information. A third wrong move is to disregard the legitimate sensibilities of foreign peoples. President Obama has managed to commit all three blunders in three short months, and the world is a less safe place for it. As has been well documented, Mr. Obama performed his...

Here is video of GOP Sen. James Inhofe today saying the decision by President Obama to scrap a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic has "pulled the rug" out from under some of our staunchest allies, and argues it leaves the United States "naked" and vulnerable to long-range missile attack from Iran for five years, from 2013-2018. Inhofe said "Iran and Russia are celebrating" Obama's decision. Obama decided to scrap a promised missile shield system already agreed to by the Bush Administration to be placed in Eastern Europe to guard against Iran and to signal determination to...

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday.

Was it only April? There was President Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America's plucky allies: "The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles," he declared. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven." On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The "courageous" Czechs and Poles will have to take their chances. Did the "threat from Iran" go away? Not...

Senator Inhofe was on Savage show tonight. He said the Star Wars missile defense for Poland and the Czech Republic were also for protection of the United States. Inhofe said there are three stages of an ICBM flight. Launch, midflight and terminal phase.

President Obama is making so many foreign-policy blunders that he is starting to make us yearn for the national-security acumen of the Carter administration. His official announcement scrapping the planned missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic was long expected but still landed with a thud. It is hard to remember a strategic choice that is so obviously wrong on so many levels.

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

Senators reacted with bipartisan concern Thursday over the Obama administration’s decision to scrap a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, saying Congress and foreign allies were kept in the dark. The decision announced Thursday morning followed late-night phone calls to Czech and Polish officials, and at least one senior Democrat — Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) — said those countries had no problem with the decision. But the committee’s ranking Republican, 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain (Ariz.), told The Hill the White House never notified his committee until Thursday morning. McCain also disputed Levin’s assertion that Czech and...

Shortly after the pullback on the shield programme was announced, Russia's government said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would meet several U.S. executives on Friday from firms including General Electric, Morgan Stanley as well as TPG, one of the world's largest private equity firms

WASHINGTON -- The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago that the Obama administration was about to abandon its plans for Third Site missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. I wrote then that “if enacted, this would represent a huge turnaround in American strategic thinking on a global missile defence system, and a massive betrayal of two key US allies in eastern and central Europe. Such a move would significantly weaken America’s ability to combat the growing threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program, and would hand a major propaganda victory to the Russians.” It now looks as though the...

CARACAS — Amid rising tensions with neighboring Colombia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced late Friday that his country would soon take delivery of Russian-made missiles with a range of 300 kilometers (185 miles). "We have signed some agreements with Russia. Soon we will begin receiving some missiles," Chavez said during a meeting with supporters in front of the presidential palace. He underscored the reliability of the Russian weaponry, but stressed that his country had "no plans to attack anybody." But the announcement came amid rising tension between Caracas and Bogota over Colombia's decision to allow the United States access to...

The US and Russia have given differing responses to Iran's latest proposals on its nuclear programme. The proposals, aimed at ending the impasse over Iran's nuclear ambitions, were submitted to a group of six global powers on Wednesday. The US State Department said the proposals fell short of satisfying international demands. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said they contained something to work with. "Based on a brief review of the Iranian papers my impression is there is something there to use," Mr Lavrov said in Moscow. "The most important thing is (that) Iran is ready for a comprehensive discussion...

Russia May Soon Have Its Own Obama from Guinea-Bissau The campaign to elect the municipal government of Russia’s Volgograd region has turned into a scandal. The candidates use all possible methods, including the racial issue, to attract electors’ attention, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. A native of Guinea-Bissau, Joakim Krima, a 37-year-old graduate of the Volgograd Pedagogical University, set out his wish to run for the head of the regional government. The “black Russian” was born in Africa and moved to Russia’s Volgograd region 12 years ago. Krima, who sells watermelons, refers to himself as a Russian citizen. He says that...