U.S. to Stop Counting New Missiles in Russia

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/01/us-to-stop-counting-new-missiles-in-russia/

The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War -- the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line.

The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress, with insiders from both parties arguing over whether the George W. Bush or the Obama administration is responsible.

Although the United States does not produce new long-range missiles, Russia continues to do so and has built dozens of missiles since the monitoring started 15 years ago.

U.S. Scraps Missile Defense Shield Plans

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/17/united.states.missile.shield/index.html

The Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday.

But he [Vice President Joe Biden] did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran -- a key concern for the United States -- was not a threat.

Poland and the Czech Republic had based much of their future security policy on getting the missile defenses from the United States. The countries share deep concerns of a future military threat from the east -- namely, Russia -- and may now look for other defense assurances from their NATO allies.

Obama's Deadly Defense Cuts

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/wallop_obama_defense/2009/08/13/247692.html

The Pentagon’s proposed 2010 budget would cut the funding for homeland missile defense – known as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD – in half, allowing the U.S.’s only defense against long-range ballistic missiles to stall and eventually become obsolete.

The budget halts the installation of interceptor missiles in silos in Alaska and California, leaving us approximately a dozen missiles short of what security analysis has shown we need to counter the threat from North Korea.