President Obama has decided to pre-announce to the world once-secret American ballistic missile tests and satellite launches.
The Democratic administration’s goal is to show a friendlier face to other countries and to coax Russia to do the same.
It’s part of a confidence-boosting initiative launched, so to speak, last fall when Obama suddenly abandoned the U.S. missile-defense system in Eastern Europe that had exercised the Russians, though it was aimed at potential future missiles from Iran.
Obama hoped such a unilateral U.S. forfeiture would encourage Russia to put pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear weapons development. So far no good on that.
These are strategic secrets. Not operational. Not tactical. The revelation of such information was previously thought – by many men of good intent, in both parties – to have the potential for “exceptionally grave damage” to US national security.
“Hope” was a campaign slogan. Not a strategy.
