Biden’s Arm Twisting Tour Continues

Sally McNamara / October 23, 2009

As Vice President Joe Biden completes his arm-twisting tour of Central and Eastern Europe, the Czechs have announced that they are ready to participate in America’s new missile defense plan, but only in the context of NATO. In the clearest sign yet of dissatisfaction with their second-class treatment by the new Administration, the caretaker Czech Government announced that Czech participation in the new missile defense architecture will no longer be on a bilateral basis.

It is clear that President Obama sent Biden to Central and Eastern Europe to paper over the most immediate cracks between the two. Warsaw and Prague’s most pressing concern is America’s apparent willingness to pay any price to ‘reset’ U.S.-Russian relations. The lack of prior consultation by the Obama Administration with Poland and the Czech Republic before abandoning the Third Site gave Warsaw and Prague every indication that their interests are merely moot in a great Washington-Moscow poker game. (more…)