a senior russian parliamentarian announced monday that moscow would deploy short-range ballistic missiles as well as a sophisticated air defense system to kaliningrad, a russian exclave tucked between poland and lithuania. think of this as vladimir putin <u+2019>s first test of donald trump <u+2019>s mettle as a commander in chief. <u+201c>why are we reacting to nato expansion so emotionally?<u+201d> mr. putin asked in an interview the same day. <u+201c>what should we do? we have, therefore, to take countermeasures, which means to target with our missile systems the facilities, that, in our opinion, start posing a threat to us.<u+201d> those missile systems include the mobile iskander system, which can carry a nuclear warhead to a range of 300 miles, along with the s-400 surface-to-air missile system, capable of shooting down all but the most sophisticated stealth planes. the <u+201c>facilities<u+201d> to which these missiles are supposedly a response are future sites for an advanced version of the american sm-3 anti-ballistic missile system, which<u+2014>unlike the iskanders<u+2014>has no offensive purpose. it<u+2019>s worth recalling that as part of his <u+201c>russian reset<u+201d> in 2009 president obama cancelled a bush administration plan to deploy abm systems to poland and the czech republic to defend against iranian missiles. the kremlin<u+2019>s vociferous opposition succeeded in getting mr. obama to yield, and the russian strongman may be wagering that he can play the same trick with president-elect trump. but one reason the obama administration moved ahead with the sm-3 plan was years of russian military provocation in central and eastern europe. this includes its violations of the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, nuclear threats by russian diplomats against european countries, provocative bomber forays near european airspace, the invasion of ukraine, and moscow<u+2019>s complete withdrawal last year from the 1992 conventional armed forces in europe treaty, which set ceilings on overall force levels for nato and former soviet states. mr. putin is playing the old soviet game of behaving provocatively and then complaining of the <u+201c>provocative<u+201d> response. this has nato allies such as poland, which meets its treaty obligations of spending more than 2% of gdp on defense, justifiably nervous. warsaw will be well within range of the iskander missiles. mr. trump has indicated he wants a reset of his own with the kremlin. that<u+2019>s a respectable goal, provided the president-elect pursues it not through mr. obama<u+2019>s habit of pre-emptive concessions, but with the tried-and-true formula of peace through strength. completing the deployment of the sm-3s in poland would send mr. putin the right message.
from moscow, with provocation - wsj
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