Cold War Redux
How much can they screw up? Let me count the ways. Even a news hog like me can miss an important apple now and then. The one I missed this time was how our new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is apparently trying to re-light the cold war flames. Brilliant! I've missed all the tension about imminent nuclear conflagration. It sort of keeps the worry about imminent terrorist attacks in perspective. Just putting some of our flawed "missile defense shield" in ex-Soviet countries in Eastern Europe was enough to crank up the Russian defense spending. Check this paragraph from the Feb 9 edition of the British Guardian Limited http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2009339,00.html In his speech to Russia's parliament, Mr Ivanov (Russia's hawkish defence minister, Sergei Ivanov) announced that the military would get 17 ballistic missiles this year, compared with an average of four in recent years. The plan envisages the deployment of 34 new silo-based Topol-M missil