Europe awaits Obama’s stance on issues

[unhappycamper]

Europe awaits Obama’s stance on issues
By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, November 7, 2008

Vice President-elect Joe Biden said prior to the election that foreign adversaries would quickly "test the mettle" of Barack Obama once he became president.

A day after the Illinois senator won the 2008 presidential election, the prediction proved prophetic when Russia announced it would deploy missiles and jamming equipment to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave near the Polish-Lithuanian border. The move, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, was in response to U.S. plans to place a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"Russia is a big issue for Europe," said Caitlin Harrington of Jane’s Defence Weekly. "Russia is definitely high on their radar."

In the aftermath of Obama’s election, several European observers at think tanks and news organizations speculated on what it means to their nations and to the U.S. military in Europe.

"On the military side, things will go quietly," said Slobodan Samardziga, deputy foreign editor for Politika, the most influential newspaper in Serbia. "Sometimes it is much better to do things quietly."


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58678