After scraping the plans of building a missile defense shield in Poland and Czech Republic President Obama is working now on deploying defense missiles to another part of Eastern Europe: the Balkans.

Romania and Bulgaria are both members of NATO and the EU. Last week Romania’s top defense body had approved Washington’s plan to deploy interceptor missiles.
Bulgarian PM Boiko Borisov said Sofia should show solidarity and consider the Washington deal after negotiations with NATO and EU.

After humiliating Poland the Obama administration realized they still need the land based defense structures designed to protect against current and emerging ballistic missile threats from Iran. According to the regime in Teheran the Islamic Republic is already in possession of missiles that can reach the Balkan countries like Greece and Bulgaria that are members of NATO and EU.

The idea behind stopping the Czech-Poland missile defense project was that US will count on cheaper and faster to implement water based mobile missile defense. Apparently the recent Iranian behavior made President Obama to change heart again. Poland and Czech Republic apparently are not willing to play the game again so the White House has focused their attention on the Balkans.

Russia expects NATO to ask Moscow for approval on such actions. You bet Moscow is not happy about the new shield talks. Bulgaria and Romania will likely face pressure from Russia. The country is heavily dependent on Russian oil.

The new US missile shield in Eastern Europe is the most likely reason for the stalling on negotiations between the USA and Russia over arm controls.

The Balkans is the one of the most sensitive places for negotiations. For centuries the Russians were fighting for influence there. Creepy fact is that the both World Wars started with incidents on the Balkans.

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