Iain Martin: Cold War Lessons Lost on Obama?
[Iain Martin is Deputy Editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe. He writes on politics.]
The U.S. administration’s abandonment of the missile shield programme today suggests that nobody in the administration has examined the lessons of the Cold War in Europe in any detail. Or if they have, they have been studying the 1970s and drawn precisely the wrong conclusions. They should read on into the 1980s to discover that concessions are only worth making from a position of strength and in return for equal or much greater concessions from the Russians...
... The Iranians too will be marveling at what this exercise says about the strength, or weakness, of the U.S. administration’s determination to protect the interests of America and its allies abroad. Marcin Sobczyk in Poland has already explained on our New Europe blog the impact that this will have on a country where memories are fresh of Russian interference and bullying. He also charts how Polish politicking delayed the deal with the Bush administration to house the missile shield facilities. That disastrous delay gave Obama’s team an opportunity to kill the programme, as they have today.
From Britain expect supine silence. (If Margaret Thatcher was the current occupant of Number 10 she would have been on the first flight out of London to Washington this morning to give the President a handbagging.) From Germany and France? Don’t expect much noise either.
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. administration’s abandonment of the missile shield programme today suggests that nobody in the administration has examined the lessons of the Cold War in Europe in any detail. Or if they have, they have been studying the 1970s and drawn precisely the wrong conclusions. They should read on into the 1980s to discover that concessions are only worth making from a position of strength and in return for equal or much greater concessions from the Russians...
... The Iranians too will be marveling at what this exercise says about the strength, or weakness, of the U.S. administration’s determination to protect the interests of America and its allies abroad. Marcin Sobczyk in Poland has already explained on our New Europe blog the impact that this will have on a country where memories are fresh of Russian interference and bullying. He also charts how Polish politicking delayed the deal with the Bush administration to house the missile shield facilities. That disastrous delay gave Obama’s team an opportunity to kill the programme, as they have today.
From Britain expect supine silence. (If Margaret Thatcher was the current occupant of Number 10 she would have been on the first flight out of London to Washington this morning to give the President a handbagging.) From Germany and France? Don’t expect much noise either.