Understanding events that don’t happen can sometimes be as important as understanding the ones that do. Russia’s non-intervention in Kyrgyzstan earlier this month is a good example that should be on the minds of U.S. policymakers when Presidents Obama and Medvedev meet on June 24. Some of Russia’s reasons for not acting were reassuring, others less so. Ethnic cleansing and mass disorder ought to be a reminder that Russia and the United States can have common interests. But these events also make clear why real cooperation is so hard.

Within several days since the deployment of Patriot ballistic missile defense or BMD system that took place on 26 May in Morag, Northern Poland, about 60 km from Kaliningrad region, Russian enclave in the Baltic Sea area, Moscow has gradually changed its stance on the respective U.S.-Polish deal: from initially cautious to a much stronger reaction.

From the very outset the arrangement was labeled as undesirable one. Russians did not understand the logic and sense of cooperation between the U.S. and Poland in the BMD sphere. They do not see any military and political reason that would justify the deployment of Patriot missiles on the Polish soil.