A Russian Victory. 09/17/2009.

President Obama’s decision to scrap (shelf, postpone, suspend, freeze… make up your own word) the ABM system in Eastern Europe (in Poland and the Czech Republic, to be exact), is indeed a Russian victory, just as our conservatives clamor, but for a different reason than what they are stating. It is ludicrous to insinuate that this move is some kind of cave-in to Russian pressure, or a cynical betrayal of American interest for the sake of “resetting” the American-Russian relationship, as promised by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to her Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Re the photograph: as a matter of fact, which finger is being used here to reset Russian-American relations?!)

All this is nonsense. American interest did not suffer by virtue of the proposed non-deployment. All along, this ABM project had been a political maneuver, devoid of any military significance. And, of course, it was always directed against Russia, being incongruously useless against Iran.

To begin with, this ABM system, as proposed three years ago, simply does not work, as stated on numerous occasions by responsible and authoritative American experts. (I encourage those readers who are unaware of this fact to do the necessary homework.) In effect, it is a conglomeration of overpriced good-for-nothing hardware and software, which failed most performance tests, while those which it did pass are said to have been rigged (absent decoy target balloons, increased balloon size, etc.).

I am convinced that when this system was first offered by the Bush Administration, it was meant only as an important symbolic gesture. It is inconceivable that the system would ever have been deployed, as both our friends and foes knew only too well that it would not work in real life.

So, where is the Russian victory here? It is all in the appearances, as every politician knows that perceptions are far more important than reality. The Russians did pretend to take this thing seriously, and never stopped complaining about it, so that today they can claim victory with a straight face , when, in truth, this is nothing more than President Obama’s concession to common sense, which had been lacking from the decision of his predecessor.