Other than that, this is a humiliating defeat.

Conservative America is in full pant-shitting mode over Obama's decision to "betray" and "abandon" Europe by removing ground-based missile defense systems from Poland. It is worth noting, while discussing the symbolic and diplomatic significance of this cowardly retreat, that missile defense systems do not work. They have never worked. They show no hope of working at any point in the foreseeable future.

Got that? Because it's kinda important. They don't work. They don't work. And they don't work. It is the most idiotic boondoggle in the history of a defense industry loaded to the gunwales with boondoggles. Even when technology improves to the point that the target-launch-intercept and accuracy hurdles are overcome, there is no aspect of a missile-based interception system that can't be defeated by the addition of a handful of empty steel decoys to any warhead. Approximate cost: $50.

Republicans have been pissing money at this technology for 30 years and will for 30 more. There has been almost no progress made in that time. The technology remains nowhere close to working (30% kill rates in "ideal condition" Pentagon tests do not count). Keep that in mind.