Then, in a sort of sunny offer of cooperation with the US in defending against rogue state missile launches, he offers an old Soviet era Azerbaijani radar site to help if the US will cancel the European interceptors. Up sound.

And so the negotiating style for control is a bad cop, good cop method. Whatever the method, Putin used an opening apparently extended by Robert Gates when he called on the Russian Federation to join with the US in strengthening security in the region using the missile shield.

Putin's Aegis sea-launched interceptor suggestion is interesting, especially in light of the fact that the sea-based system has had ascending hit-to-kill test success, and is more flexible in mobile threat adaptation (see FAS Report). However, Iran has already developed anti-ship missiles capable of taking out Aegis class destroyers. And so a rogue first strike could be preceded by a conventional attack on said ships, the result of which would depend on a land based system to fill in if the ship attack were first successful. (A separate concern: would missile defense discriminate b/w nuclear payloads and say, nerve gas payloads, and would it make a difference?)

The RF was offered not only NATO membership, (which organization is involved in assessing the MEAD system for a more comprehensive protection program, plus the efficacy of the upgraded PAC-2 batteries) which would have enhanced world security immensely, but has refused an opened door to participate in the planned X-band and interceptor system. The GAO reports problems with anti-long range missile defense, which is what Russia fears, and so Putin's protest that the shield is such a system is "disingenuine," as one editorial put it.

However, systems research against medium or short range tactical launches, which in this day of proliferation and black markets shouldn't be ruled out by any intelligent nation-state, isn't folly at all. A system existing to deter rogue launches, to put in place an improvable system to deal with accidental launches, and to deal with launch risks should a government such as Pakistan fall into extremist hands, makes sense.

What is going on here? If there were no Russian Federation missiles aimed at Europe to begin with; and if there was no intent to aim them there in the future, why would an interceptor system bother Mr. Putin? Only if the missile shield might actually work? Or if it could be re-fitted with short range first strike weapons?

However, if SecDef Gates' offer was for real, he opened the door to Russian participation. In other words, I suppose they'd be on site with the interceptors, just as cosmonauts are in the Space Shuttle and astronauts are in the International Space Station. And this is really just a sub-categorical offer of participation that follows an earlier offer for the Russian Federation to join NATO, which it refused.

So what's up? Is the G8 an upsound date, or a downsound date? Let's look on the bright side, so long as it doesn't glow green, and hope that the KGB state obtains that last stretch of insight required to be a citizen of the world, and not a rerun nemesis.