No missile defense in Eastern Europe

The Obama people are throwing the Russians a bone and cancelling the Bush Administration move to put missle defense systems in Poland the Czech Republic. I hope this is part  of a deal or understanding that the Russians will help us out more on containing Iran.

This is, by the way, good news for the U.S. Navy, which now will have to plan on deploying anti-missile ships to the Black Sea, where they could try to intercept rockets the Iranians might be stupid enough to shoot northwestward toward Europe. Ah, “the Black Sea fleet” — that has a nice ring to it. Turkey is also a nice place for liberty ports. There are lots of interesting and relatively inexpensive towns in Turkey, especially on its Mediterranean coast, which Americans never seem to have discovered. And the larger message for political leaders is a reminder that sea-based systems are less subject to political pressures than are land-based systems — another plus for the Navy. 

Tambako the Jaguar/flickr