Against the European Missile Shield

Michael O'Hanlon is, and yours truly as well. From the NY Times:

The system — which would complement the one established in recent
years in California and Alaska — is intended primarily to protect Europe and
America from a missile launched from the Middle East. It is in principle a
worthy idea, but the military benefits in the short term are not worth the
worsening of relations with Russia that it has already engendered.
Rather
than push the idea now, when the threat of long-range missiles from the Middle
East is hardly acute, it would be better to allow a new American president and a
new Russian president — Vladimir Putin is barred by his country’s Constitution
from running again next year — to reconsider the subject in 2009 or 2010...Most
important, we must bear in mind that, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
reminded Mr. Putin this winter, “One cold war was quite enough.”

I support this view whole-heartedly. At best, the ABM System may not work 100%. The worse is, placing the weapons up against the Russian border is giving Putin an enemy, whether real or imaginary, and allowing his iron fist to clamp down harder on his long-suffering citizens. This is no way to promote democracy in the former Soviet Union.