Oh. The BMD was useless in all but commitment. BMD existing in Poland meant that the U.S. were commited to the defence of that system, and thus, the defence of Poland. That icked Russia a very large amount. they are already annoyed to no end because of U.S.'s ventures (and rise of influence) in the Caucase, Central Asia and Ukraine...

U.S. are already modernising and bolstering Poland's military. They will become a major player in the mid-run.

And by undoing that commitment Obama has improved the US' international standing?

Actually, dead wrong there. There were restrictions even on aircraft carriers. And poor nations did not cultivate the aircraft carrier- rich nations that already had battleships were the pioneers.

Wrong again my friend. Throughout the 1920's and 1930's the United States figured out that Carrier warfare was the future, particularly through the trials and tests of the various Panama Wargames. This is all well documented but a good summary can be found here;

http://www.history.navy.mil/download/car-5.pdf

In 1921 Admiral Sims proclaimed "The Battleship is dead" after watching a carrier-launched attack. This was two decades before the U.S got into WW2, and the U.S admiralty knew very well that the only thing that saved their bacon at pearl harbor was that the carriers were all out of port (and that the fuel tank farm didn't get hit)

With that said, and even with the benefits of the carrier made widely known, there were admirals in both the U.S and Japanese (and especially British) fleets who still stuck to doctrine of the biggest ship with the biggest guns as the primary tool, but by WW2 they were mostly sidelined.

Again, please go back to school. The Maginot line was an absolute disaster and never should have been built. Why?

1) Most of the gun emplacements only pointed in one direction. After the Germans went around the line, the French couldn't even turn most of their big guns on the Germans

2) Assuming that you can build an unasaillable wall across your ENTIRE border has always been foolhardy throughout history, and this illustrates' the French Army's lack of understanding of manoevre warfare. Even if the Germans had carried out a frontal assault, at some point they would have broken through a point in the wall and poured through, then encircled the forces at the front. The Germans did this to great effect throughout the war, time and again. The Russians, having been Blitzkrieged many times, learned how to thwart the Germans manoevers, but at very great cost (much greater than the French were willing to commit)

Kursk was a prime example of how to stop Blitzkrieg warfare, in which, the Russians essentially had a wall of forces that went back in depth almost endlessly. Line after line of forces, trench after trench, division after division and so on. Basically, when the Germans "broke through" a line at Kursk they found another line. Break through that, and another line, and another and so on and so on. To accomplish this, the Russians built defensive formations and obstacles that make the Maginot line look like child's play and much of the fortifications weren't big fancy concrete buildings because the Russian's knew that they would be bypassed anyway. And of course the fact that they were willing to sacrifice wave after wave of their own troops to bog down the Germans.

The French, on the other hand, while they had a very nice front line of fortifications, had very little depth to the Maginot line, only about 25 km.

3) Here's the real kicker. The French built the Maginot line expressly to discourage a direct frontal attack, and to encourage the Germans to attack Belgium instead. Contrary to popular belief the Germans didn't stun the French by "going around" the line, they did exactly what the French hoped for. The reasoning behind this was interesting; the French believed that attacking Belgium would take time for the German army to maneuver there, buying the French time to prepare. The French also believed that the German assault on Belgium would,at minimum, get bogged down and take a couple of weeks, thus buying even more time for the French to mobilize forces to send to the front.

Also, the myth that the Maginot line ended at the Belgian border is also FALSE. The Maginot line actually connected to extensive Belgian fortifications, essentially extending it.

What DID surprise the French was how quickly the Germans were able to get so many forces to Belgium, and how quickly the Germans were able to break through at the strongest fortified point in the Belgian system- Fort Eben-Emael.

The Germans took this fort through a unique assault that mostly went around the defenses of the fort- they flew troops in on gliders. Once they took the fort, this prevented the Belgians' from destroying two of three key bridges, and voilla, the Germans had bypassed the entire defensive capability of the Maginot line. 

Sorry, wrong again my friend. The Apache is -not- the replacement for the Warthog. The Apache is Army, the Warthog is Airforce. And, the Warthog just had a big upgrade and is scheduled to remain in service at least until the 2020's, at which point it is to be -theoretically- replaced by the F-35. The Apache, was never intended to replace the Warthog but to replace the Cobra.

Yes, tanks were new but in the 20's and 30's the Germans learned all about their potential for maneuvering around enemy forces. Just like the U.S with carriers, the Germans had a good 15 or more years to really experiment and learn about a new style of warfare. The French and Brits, not wanting to deviate from standard dogma, still believed that tanks were meant solely to support infantry which is why in many cases, the Germans found French and English tanks that had run out of fuel- as both Armies only provided enough fuel for a tank to travel a few miles as they never imagined it would outstrip the infantry.

As to your quotes about the missile tests, please provide the data. I've seen news reports and press releases, but they've all been mostly stacked in favor of the interceptor or using missiles going in a nice straight line. The truth is, if they could shoot down a missile that's deviating in it's course, they would have trumpeted it to the world by now.

Well, Pierre Sprey was one of McNamara's "whiz kids" who was instrumental in the design and  creation of the F-16 and A-10. He was also a member of the defense reform movement in the 1970's which took on large bureaucratic arms developers and took them to task for spending  more and more money to develop fewer and often ineffective weapons. So, when he speaks, I listen!

There is no "international standing". You have to look at each countries's views ans politics.

Poland isn't happy about it, obviously. But Poland has to learn that things won't always go their way when they get the support of a superpower. They still get massive military backing, as previously stated, and with or without BMD, they win a lot out of their deal with the U.S.

Other countries in the regions don't care much about that, or maybe they would actually react happily at the news.. After all, after the Bush era, U.S. has the reputation of being aggressive about their defence. Showing some signs of backing down on a project as controversial as the BMD might get some limited credit among the general population (not so among the political elites).

Russia is happy, obviously. But then again, they know too that the BMD is just the point of the Iceberg, and they are afraid of the whole iceberg: USA influence in the FSU. I don't know how your goverment will act about it.. but as I said earlier, Ukraine is a foregone conclusion: they will get back to their previous allegiance to Russia soon.

The U.S. of A. don't look weaker in Europe by backing down on that project, but they do confirm that you are vulnerable on the issue of Iran (something that everybody suspected anyway).

The only concern that I (and STRATFOR) have is the White House's declaration that "the decision has nothing to do with Russia". While a white lie is common tactic in international (and domestic) politics, this one is slightly incompetent when you lookat the whole picture. Either you believe the White House, and you then think that the White House was stupid ennough not to consider ZE regional influence/consequence, or the White House did not thought up of a better excuse. But then again, Obama is facing irrational pressure from the domestic side, and probably don't want to give a single sentence that the conservatives might use as proof that he is weak.

I will put this whole aspect of the problem in the "Nixon goes to China" area of political psychology.

But will we actually get anything from it?

I meant, "Nixon goes to China" because Nixon was the only president right-wing ennough to make concessions to China without being attacked by the conservative pundits as a "Traitor to America".

Obama will be pressed to look as less conciliant to the Russians as possible because he knows there is millions of crazy conservative that just want to jump the gun on him anyway, they are simply waiting for a new excuse to do so. That makes him vulnerable on the international side.

Arty, nothing wrong with the A-10 at all, it's a fine (probably the finest) ground support aircraft in the world. But (and here seems to be the disconnect you can't grasp) it needs to operate in Allied controlled airspace. It is basically the Stuka of modern air warfare. The Stuka worked great until the Germans sent it over the English Channel. The Brits had air superiority and slaughtered the Stuka's. The Stuka still preformed moderately well in other theaters (Especially the Eastern front) throughout the war, but its reputation as a "war winning" weapon was ruined. The A-10 works in the environment it's in now because the US controls the skies. It would most likely have a higher attrition rate if flown in combat against some nation like Russia.

You speak of comparing apples (missiles) and oranges (battleships). Here's the problem with your battleship theory. They have been pulled out in every major conflict the US has had up until the 1st Gulf War. Why? They are obsolete right? The fact is NOTHING can give support to beach landings or near-shore operations like the guns of a battle ship (25 miles). The Iraqis in Kuwait literally shit their pants when the guns fired on the day of the invasion. Aircraft cannot provide close to that kind of fire power sustained over hours or even days (and Marines love battleships). I agree the main purpose of the ship is history (as you point out), which was to sink other battleships. Sucks being the last. It's not worth the cost to build something with a limited reach (even if it has cruise missiles), manpower intensive, lot of up keep, little path to upgrade, and in which smaller platforms can carry missiles. The explosion in Iowa's gun torrent signaled the end of this 60 year old weapons system, but even now we have nothing comparable (in bombardment efficiency). Now if you want to pull any other weapon out of history, start another thread, we can talk about spears vs. arrows there.

Back to the article (again). You have some pretty tough standards for an ABM in its infancy. The "rigged" test you speak of would be like shooting a needle, from your front yard to the backyard, through the eye of another needle. Oh, and that target is moving at 100mph to boot. Reeks of failure wouldn't you say? There is this little word called telemetry that must be considered. When an ICBM is launched, radars determine it's speed, trajectory and course- feed this into the missiles computer to make the interception. Missile technology itself is pretty constant (we can make a fast rocket easy enough), it's guidance that is improving quickly, much of it in software code. The missiles that were put to be put in Poland would have been continuously upgraded over their life. Now, your reasoning again why this are ineffective or obsolete were??? I forget since so much unrelated BS has filtered through.

You'll get the effect of Obama's foreign policy when Iran's Ahmadinejad. I'm sure he will be unable to hide his joy. Of course anything to make people happy right?

what do you mean by "Iran's Ahmadinejad"?

Yes, widely known but not accepted by the people that mattered. Yes, we built carriers but it was the Jananese that exploited the weakness after the UK proved that naval avation could sink battleships. Also proven by General Mitchel who was forced out of the army for proving it. Japan broke the treaty and built more than allowed and no one did anything about it. Germany with all thier inovations did not build any that I remember because they were afraid of the British navy.

No one said it was not a disaster, the error was not completing the wall around the nation. It worked well in China only because there were no holes in it. The line was designed to hold off an army long enough to bring up troops from around the country. The line was a delaying tactic not the be all and end all to the nations defence. Your arguments made my point thanks.

When the Air force announced they were getting rid of the warthog and not replacing it, the army came up with the apache. The cobra was not an anti-tank weapon till close to the end of its life. CONTEXT will help.

That is an assumption on your part, if you can find an obsucre article about Admaril Sims written 30 years after his death to prove your point you can find the rest if you want to. I am internet challenged and don't surf much excpt when working on my books. It took me an hour just to find out about Sims.

McNamara, the man credited with the loss of Vietnam, the distruction of our military that lasted for decades. You listen to people like that? THey had to come up with something to replace the failed F-4 that Mac forced into all branches of the military, yup he would know about wasting money and getting things wrong.

And Tony Blair had the left-wing credentials to pull of Iraq. Didn't work though. The left are not as easily convinced by rational thought.

Obama missed the chance to be the left-winger who didn't cave in to the Russians.

You just proved my point

Jimmy Carter II, hell; try James Buchanan. Vain, pompous, arrogant; did nothing while the Union fell apart around him.

YOUR point was that Obama made the wrong decision?

I thought it was mine.

Sorry (interruptions will definitely ruin your thought patterns when writing) The broken statement actually was to say,  The Iranian president - by hook or crook - will be gloating at the UN this week. He know the missile/radar pullout of Eastern Europe was a coup for him, he probably feels he is able to change world policy to his will (true or not). This will only embolden him, not deter him.