Obama hasn't betrayed any eastern European allies

Yet despite the administration’s penchant for bungling its messaging, most officials in these countries have become significantly less worried about the reset with Russia in the last six months. They are adapting to the reality that the administration’s top priorities require a working relationship with Moscow and that Washington no longer showers them with highly public displays of devotion. They have also grasped something that the reset-bashers haven’t: There have been no grand bargains or quid pro quos with Moscow that affect their relations with the United States. In fact, the administration is delivering for them on the ground, including in ways their supposed champions in the Bush administration never did. Put a different way, there is no bus…

[D]espite the incessant claims that Obama’s missile-defense plan is both a sop to the Russians and an abandonment of Eastern Europe, his “phased, adaptive approach” is a system that is both proven and designed to protect all of Europe from medium-range missiles from Iran — a threat the Pentagon believes to be quite real. Compare that with the previous system, which was unproven, did not actually protect the European continent, and was intended to counteract what the U.S. military says is a nonexistent threat: the Iranians’ launching an ICBM. It’s hard to see how the new plan could be interpreted as anything but a boost to the security of Russia’s neighbors…

The reset-bashing crowd claims that this embargo is a clear sign of a quid pro quo: Obama wouldn’t dare risk the ire of his pals in Moscow by selling arms to the Georgians. If only there were facts to back up this assertion. In fact, the (unspoken) policy is a result of the lessons learned about the Georgian military from the war itself. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow put it in testimony to Congress: “In practically all areas, [Georgian] defense institutions, strategies, doctrine, and professional military education were found to be seriously lacking.” Moreover, an EU-commissioned report on the war showed that the country’s highly centralized decision-making processes were a major factor leading to the outbreak of violence. It would make little sense to authorize weapons sales under these conditions.