Whether NATO has provoked Russia is a question Fred Kagan obviously believes is not important. Does Fred Kagan listen to how ridiculous he sounds (.mp3 file) though?

But the key thing here is that the notion that this system is somehow directed at Russia is absolutely laughable. The geometry is wrong. The U.S. missile defense program, which has been showing the Russians virtually the blueprints and diagrams of this system all along, has shown very clearly that interceptors launched from this spot will not be able to hit Russian ICBMs that are launched from Central Asia and that fly very close to the North Pole. If we were building a system against the Russians, we would deploy it in north U.K. or something or Iceland or something like that. We would not be deploying in Poland.

Yet, a few moments later, Kagan offers this contradiction:

And I beg to deliver that there's no immediate defense here, because although the missile system will take some time to deploy, we are also promising to provide the Poles with Patriot batteries, which we can do right away, which will provide an immediate defense. Frankly, I think it would be a good idea for us to provide Patriot batteries to the Baltic states and to Georgia, as well. And before we start talking about how provocative that is to the Russians, the question is, why is it provocative for Russia's neighbors to have the ability to defend their own airspace if Russia does not intend to get into a war with them?

And, Kagan thinks the Russians have reacted "insanely"? Kagan's the one raising his voice, yet he believes sanity is an American monopoly. As his interlocutor, John Isaacs, declares, NATO responded to Russia's economic collapse with a military expansion.

Well, I'd go back and say -- it's all the Russians' fault, and go back 20 years. When the Soviet Union fell apart, the dissolution of the various parts of the Soviet Union became separate states, the Warsaw Pact broke up, the independent -- the Central European countries became independent, that was an opportunity, I think, to try to build stronger relations with Russian and to promote a genuine democracy. But instead what we did at that point -- and this gets right to the point today -- we expanded NATO into a lot of the countries of the former Soviet Union in violation, apparently, of a promise we made to Gorbachev. When the two Germanys united, we told Gorbachev we would not expand NATO. But, instead, while Russia was down, we stepped on Russia's neck and said, "Tough luck. We're strong. You're weak. We're the ones that are going to make all of the decisions," and so we expanded NATO. And so we've been pushing Russia away. At this point, I think, again, both sides have taken a lot of steps that are quite provocative. And if we don't watch out, we're going to get into a hot war, instead of a cold war. But we need to go back -- whether the Russians have been -- ultimately, if we're going to get a settlement in Iran, if we're going to get a settlement in North Korea, if we're going to deal with nonproliferation, we have to work with the Russians. That's the facts on the ground.

We might as well prepare for war now, because sane guys like Kagan prepare for war by creating the grounds for it. Online Newshour transcript of this .mp3 file, "U.S. Defense Deal With Poland Stirs Angry Russian Rhetoric", is available.