Mark Adomanis finds that Hanson still misunderstands foreign policy issues:

In reality, Obama’s foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia has failed not due to its cowering weakness and accommodation, but due to its significant overlap with the previous administration’s bullheaded and illogical insistence on pursuing ballistic missile defense in Eastern Europe. That’s a criticism I would love to hear made, but it’s one that Hanson is incapable of making because it would require that he recognize Obama as a persistent and forceful advocate of American power.

Another obstacle for Hanson is that he seems unaware of this “bullheaded and illogical insistence on pursuing ballistic missile defense in Eastern Europe” because it is one of the core Republican myths about Obama that he hates missile defense and already abandoned it in eastern Europe. This is the main reason why Hanson et al. think U.S.-Polish relations are so poor, despite the fact that Poland is participating in the new missile defense arrangements. The short version of the argument against the administration’s current missile defense plan is that it is costly, it is neither necessary nor useful, and it has once again made missile defense a significant irritant in the U.S.-Russian relationship.