When Ronald Reagan proposed sharing missile-defense technology with the Soviet Union in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev scoffed at the idea.(The Week)(Brief article)

* When Ronald Reagan proposed sharing missile-defense technology with the Soviet Union in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev scoffed at the idea. More than 20 years later, however, Russian president Vladimir Putin is showing more interest--or so it would seem, based on his surprise suggestion that the United States incorporate a Russian radar in Azerbaijan into a missile-defense system whose main purpose is to protect NATO countries from an Iranian nuclear threat. If Putin hoped that his proposal would persuade the Bush administration to step back from building our own radar in the Czech Republic and basing ten interceptors in Poland, then he badly miscalculated: Defense secretary Robert Gates has made clear that these plans will ...