Columnists
Tom Balmforth, Russia Profile
from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. True to the form established during the tense George Bush-Vladimir Putin era, a high-ranking Russian naval officer issued the aggressive response that Russia would redress the military imbalance by strengthening its Baltic Fleet. The situation was immediately reminiscent of the fiasco surrounding the proposed U.S. missile defense system (MDS) in Poland and Czech Republic, when Russia said it would install Iskander ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad. Washington then tried to calm a nervous Poland by offering to deploy Patriots close to Warsaw to offset this second threat.Last year, however, significant strides were made away from this military stand-off. Barack Obama shelved MDS plans, ushering in a period of “reset” relations, and Russia subsequently scrapped its plans to put Iskander missiles in its European exclave. Nonetheless Poland, felt that it emerged the loser from the “reset,” and continued to seek
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