This author says no, and that we've taken further steps to tighten relations with Poland:
In the foreign policy debate last week, Governor Mitt Romney repeated an assertion he's made throughout the campaign: that, in "pulling our missile defense program out" of Poland, President Obama failed to stand by a key NATO ally. This charge is simply untrue. Not only does Obama still plan to deploy missile defenses in Poland, he has done as much, if not more, than his predecessor to bolster the security of U.S. allies in Central and Eastern Europe.
First, the author didn't quote Romney as saying that President Obama "abandoned" Poland. Romney said we failed to stand by an ally.
Well, we did fail to stand by Poland after they'd withstood Russian pressure to reject the missiles and radar. And the timing--on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion in 1939 to split Poland between the USSR and Nazi Germany--added to the scare of being left alone to face Moscow.
Nor is the new system more proven than the system it replaces. That didn't stop Russia from bitterly complaining about Obama's plan. And eventually, if it is updated, it will do what the Bush system was to do--protect American soil.
Over time, the Obama administration did recover from that mis-step with a new missile defense plan and conventional defense arrangements. Good and good. I'd like us to do more for conventional defense--and called for more when Bush was in office. But this stuff takes time and I'm not actually condemning President Obama for not doing it.
But the replacement missile defense system isn't as good for us and doesn't fully replace the Bush-era system in defending Europe.
Remember, the original system was designed to intercept Iranian missiles flying over Europe to hit our east coast. It's range and altitude would also have protected all of Europe, too.
Saying the new plan is superior requires you to ignore the range and altitude issue of the selected missiles which make them unsuited to defending America; and to assume that we can deploy the missiles for the new plan all over Europe and the seas around Europe aboard ship in order to protect the continent.
Yes, we can install these missiles faster, but I don't believe we will have enough assets to defend all of Europe--not at the same time, anyway. The land based installations can't cover all of Europe. And the ships can't be everywhere at the same time to cover the areas away from the land-based sites.
Nor will the new system as installed defend America from Iranian long-range missiles that the Iranians will one day develop. But no worries, we can install a system that can't defend our east coast much faster than the Bush-era system that would. That's better for us ... how?
While President Obama did not abandon Poland, he did give them quite a scare that abandoning them in favor of a Russian reset was exactly what he was doing. Over the last three years, President Obama has undone the damage of that clumsy initiative.
I guess the real question is, did President Obama abandon America?
UPDATE: Poland is too close to Russia not to be constantly worried about the intentions of Moscow and the willingness of allies to help them. This is an example (tip to Instapundit). While there is no hard proof and I assume the simple explanation of a crash is likely until shown otherwise, the worry will always mean incidents like this will sow suspicion in Poland and make anything we do loom large in Poland. So yes, we had to have worried Poland a great deal by our flubbed missile defense decision in September 2009.
