RUSSKIES

Posted at 7:56 a.m. ET

Joe Biden predicted that the new president would be challenged rather quickly by international forces.  The Russians, as usual, didn't wait for the inauguration. Dmitri Medvedev, the president of Russia, and valet to Vladimir Putin, sent a valentine as soon as the election was called:

President Medvedev ordered missiles to be stationed up against Nato’s borders yesterday to counter American plans to build a missile defence shield.

Speaking within hours of Barack Obama’s election, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad – the former German city – next to the border with Poland.

He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads.

Taking advantage of the world’s attention on the US elections, Mr Medvedev also cancelled plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia by 2010.

Those Russkies.  Always spoiling our party.

But the issue is serious.  Russia, unlike some of our other headaches, has the technological clout to create some real problems for the new president.  How should Mr. Obama react to the bluster?  Well, he can't, obviously, take international action until his inauguration, nor should he issue definitive public statements.  We have, as they say, one president at a time. 

But what Mr. Obama can do is end some of the damaging speculation about his national-security appointments and name mature, savvy individuals as secretaries of state and defense, and national-security adviser.  This means avoiding such potential disasters as John Kerry, who'd like the State job, and who embodies, in one well-groomed man, all that is wrong with the Democratic Party's foreign-policy approach.  It means avoiding the clueless Chuck Hagel, an anti-Bush Republican whose appointment at State or Defense would be seen as political rather than wise. 

I believe the Russians may seriously test us in Obama's first months in office, possibly by placing a missile or air base in Venezuela, thus re-running the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The best way for Mr. Obama to forestall such a threat is to name Cabinet officials who flash "Kennedy" rather than "Carter."  Russians can read, and they understand.

November 7, 2008.