I was determined to increase our capability as quickly as possible to protect our deployed forces and our allies. We briefed Congress on these changes on several occasions between May and July, and the response was generally favorable. The only opposition was focused on my cancellation of several of the big—and failing—development programs.
Those who would later charge that Obama walked away from the third site in Europe to please the Russians seemed oblivious to growing Polish and Czech opposition to the site and, more important, to the reality that the Defense Department was already reordering its missile defense priorities to focus on the immediate short- to medium-range-missile threat. While there certainly were some in the State Department and the White House who believed the third site in Europe was incompatible with the Russian “reset,” we in Defense did not. Making the Russians happy wasn’t exactly on my to-do list.
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