President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday time was running out for the West to come up with new proposals to secure Russia's agreement to a missile defense shield in Europe. ...
"We have time (for an agreement) but it is running out, and I think that it would be in our mutual benefit to reach mutually acceptable agreements," Medvedev told a security conference.
"The main thing is that we must hear one simple thing - hear it and receive confirmation: 'Respected friends from Russia, our missile defense is not aimed against Russian nuclear forces.' This must be affirmed, not in a friendly chat over a cup of tea or a glass of wine, but in a document."
I hope Medvedev is simply being difficult, because if he is stupid and paranoid enough to believe our system is a threat against Russia, we're in for a fun 21st century.
The Russians threaten to bolster missile launch detection and weapons to counter our missile defenses. If it increases their trust in us, I say go for it, dudes, Knock yourselves the eff out and build up those capabilities. Since the missile defenses are not pointed at Russia, can't stop a Russian attack, and are already vulnerable to existing Russian weapons, by all means achieve the capability to bounce the missile defense rubble if it helps you sleep at night.
Heck, to show you how reset I am when it comes to our Russian friends, if they truly just want a "document" that legally binds us to not use the system to shoot down Russian missiles, I say give it to them. Hell, I'm in a generous mood. Make the documents official in both English and French!
But if the Russians want to hold a key to the system so it can't be fired without their "da" or want technical details of the defenses to make themselves secure in the knowledge that they can nuke Europe and America whenever they might wake up in a foul mood, I say screw 'em.
Sometimes I think the Russians' ego leads them to make this issue such a priority sore point between us. The Russians can't accept that we just don't think about them much any more the way we used to when Soviets roamed the planet. We've got bigger issues to face on a daily basis, and only when the Russians act like this do we dust off the phone number for the 3rd under-secretary of defense who still speaks Russian to give him a task to do.
Years ago when I was a political science major, I rejected becoming a Soviet specialist because I thought that was way too pessimistic to think about the world. I was right about that, at least. A major in Russian history would have been more prescient, I'd say. On that I failed. Just general purpose history and political science for me, and I've forgotten most of the Russian language I learned (and to be fair, I only decided to learn that language when I was a math major and figured Russian would be handy).
They want a freaking "document" indeed. Therapy would do them a lot more good, I'd say.
UPDATE: Obviously, the Russians really annoy me. It is especially frustrating because I had hoped to welcome Russia to the West. Russia could have taken their place in this world of advanced democracies--one which Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan have joined and which India is moving toward, it seems--but instead they used paranoid conspiracies to alienate potential friends even as their supposed friend in the non-West, China, steals them blind in military technology and looks longingly at Russia's Far East which was gained from so-called "unequal treaties" from China.
