...and twitching...

When the bear doesn't get its way, it growls.

Today, Condoleeza Rice signed the missile shield deal with Poland. This thing is designed to protect Europe from rogue states in the Middle East (*cough* Iran *cough*) firing a nuclear tipped missile at them. Russia's reaction was to say that this could open up Poland to a nuclear attack. Rice replied '"When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988. ...'It's 2008 and the United States has a ... firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland's territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it's probably not wise to throw these threats around.'"

Of course, the bear growled again: as of today, Russia sent a message to Oslo, Norway, that it had suspended joint action with NATO. Although, if I remember my history correctly, NATO was designed to keep Russia contained. It seems to me that Russia is simply giving the organization its purpose back.

Granted, NATO had threatened to suspend activities and communication with Russia, if they refused to pull out of Georgia. They hadn't, though, not yet. I wonder if this is an admission that they don't intend to leave the territories that we've said they can't keep, or if this is a response to what we have told them they can't do.

I'm really wishing, at this point, that Russia would sit down, shut up, and behave. I don't, however, think there's going to be any chance of that unless they get spanked.