A Broken Reset Button?

The current round of START Treaty missile reduction negotiations between the U.S. and Russia will say much about how the U.S. sees its defense strategy evolving in the next decade.  The talks had been on auto-pilot since the end of the W. Bush administration, but President Obama's announcement last year that he would scale back the missile defense plan proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic has added a new wrinkle.  The U.S. plans to use this concession as a way to ask for more maneuverability in installing missile defense sites elsewhere in the world.  If Russia insists on inserting missile defense language into the treaty, however, the talks will be derailed, and the planned "reset" of U.S.-Russia relations will likely amount to nothing.