They Call It Diplomacy

In his final year, George Bush almost restarted the Cold War by demanding that the missile defense boondoggle be placed in Eastern Europe, raising the ire of the Russians, who threatened to site their own missiles there as well. It's a new Administration and a new era:

Russia has dropped plans to install missiles near Poland after the Obama administration signalled a change in US attitude to the region, a Moscow military official has reportedly said.

The official suggested that Mr Obama's White House had made clear it would not prioritise executing the Bush administration's plan to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

An unnamed official in the Russian military's general staff said: "The implementation of these plans has been halted in connection with the fact that the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy" elements of its missile defence shield in eastern Europe, according to the Interfax news agency.

Very pleasing. We're going to need the Russians' help on a variety of issues, and even if we didn't, pointing missiles at one another for the sake of installing a non-functional Star Wars system is needlessly hostile. This is a very smart move.

Now let's take missile defense out of the budget so we can deal with that deficit, right Blue Dogs and Republicans?...