U.S. Backing Down on Missile Defense?

Some interesting news from the "reset" front:

The Obama administration has developed possible alternative plans for a missile defense shield that could drop hotly disputed sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that would please Russia and Germany but sour relations with American allies in Eastern Europe.

Administration officials said they hoped to complete their months-long review of the planned antimissile system as early as next month, possibly in time for President Obama to present ideas to President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia at a meeting in New York during the annual opening at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

But they cautioned that no decisions had been made and that all options were still under discussion, including retaining the Polish and Czech sites first selected by President George W. Bush. The Obama review team plans to present a menu of options rather than a single recommendation to a committee of senior national security officials in the coming weeks. Only after that would the matter go to cabinet-rank officials and the president.

Andrew Stuttaford thinks this is "sending the wrong message." I'm not sure how that could be, considering no actual decision has been made. As we have seen with the Georgia, the administration talks the conciliatory talk about improving relations with Russia, but then went ahead and agreed to train Georgian soldiers - a move that will definitely rile Moscow.

This "review" could just be a diplomatic feint or it could be a down payment on a substantive policy shift. We'll see.