Barack Obama is keeping people guessing about whether he will pursue a Bush administration plan to set up a missile shield in central Europe but analysts say Russia has shot itself in the foot with threats to deploy missiles in retaliation.

Analysts see the threats as amounting to loose rhetoric and do not expect a showdown that will test Obama during his first six months in office after his inauguration as president on January 20. ~AFP

Ralph Peters will undoubtedly be disappointed that his latest alarmist warnings are being proved false on the same day that he made them. The good news is that Moscow seems perfectly willing to respond favorably to signals from the future President that he may not necessarily pursue the missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic. While there is an impulse among Obama’s supporters to crow about Moscow’s apparent volte-face, what we should take away from the last few days is that Moscow is willing to respond rationally when those in charge of the next administration leave an opening for flexible, constructive engagement and when they refuse to endorse needless provocation as a matter of course. If Obama would now just pull back from the absurd campaign rhetoric in which he called for “immediate” membership for Ukraine and Georgia in NATO, we might be getting somewhere.