If the broadcast evening news of June 5, 2000 was any indication, America continues to celebrate D-Day as the rest of the world looks nervously at this country's proposed National Missile Defense system.

Son of Star Wars,the official term of endearment for NMD,. and the summit between President Clinton and President Putin in Moscow meant to tackle the subject, took up lots of ink around the world as it was virtually ignored on the home front.

The Guardian of Great Britain found Clinton's performance disappointing as did nationalists members of the Duma in Russia, one of whom, Mr. Zhirinovsky told Mr. Clinton to lift the blockade on Iraq, withdraw troops from Yugoslavia, and not intervene in Russian affairs. Another, Vasily Starodubstev, the communist mayor of the Tula region, said, "Clinton spoke as if he were president of the whole planet, preaching to us how to live."

Russia has strongly objected to the missile defense system and refused to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow America to start building it. The timetable for the renewal of IMF lending to Russia coincidentally enough was also on the agenda, as was the war in Chechnya, although it was low on the list of priorities.

It seems Mr. Putin suggested building a missile shield jointly to protect from the possible attack of 'rogue states', an idea to which Washington evidently reacted coolly.

One consequence of the proposed NMD is a decision by Russia to relax its curbs on exporting sensitive nuclear equipment.

The failure to reach a breakthrough on the summit came as no surprise according to The Braunschweiger Zeitung of Germany. The important thing says the Munchener Merkur is that both parties, despite their differences, have pledged to work together. The Financial Times of London noted the two concrete achievements of the meeting, which were an agreement on the destruction of weapons–grade plutonium and on a shared early warning on missile launches.

A story in Russia Today describes Mr. Clinton's visit in the following way. " He came, he saw, but he failed to conquer." His speech in the Duma drew only restrained applause. Anti-American feelings run high among nationalists and leftist deputies, who "suspect the United States of trying to dominate the post Cold War world order".

In an article in The Irish Times, it stated that "The $60 billion NMD programme, dubbed 'son of Star Wars", has upset Washington's allies and brought strong criticism last week from the German chancellor, Dr. Gerhard Schroder." Further along it says, "Mr. Putin seems to be winning the battle for public opinion at home and in Europe by appearing flexible on arms control generally while insisting there can be no amendments to the ABM treaty."

The Dawn of Pakistan noted that a joint U.S-Russian center to swap missile early warning data will open at a once top secret site code named "Kindergarten", in a northeastern suburb of Moscow.

The Times of India reported that the NMD could set off an arms race in Asia by neutralizing China's small nuclear arsenal. "If China increases the number of missiles it has, would India think it has to increase its missiles?"

Sha Zukang, the director of the Department of Arms control and Disarmament of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was quoted in The People's Daily of China as saying that the US development of a so-called National Missile Defence (NMD) system "would be tantamount to a nuclear arms build up". Mr. Sha gave the following analysis.

"If only reducing obsolete nuclear weapons while enhancing nuclear weapons capabilities, or reducing the number of deployed nuclear weapons while putting the reduced warheads into a so-called 'inactive reserve' that allows them to be maintained or even renewed, ready for redeployment at any time, such a practice by no means amounts to genuine nuclear disarmament".

The People's Daily article also says. "China is the only one of the nuclear powers that pledges no first use of nuclear weapons."

An editorial piece in The Asian Times taken from Stratfor, the intelligence website, details what was initially wrong with America's foreign policy since the fall of the wall. "The president has battled for an inherited foreign policy – one that insists that free markets and democracy are mutually reinforcing concepts that in turn can bring former adversaries into an American engineered economic and political system. After a decade, this has proven empirically false. This is an interesting take if only because the attitude is one you are more used to hearing from the left hand side of the political spectrum.

The Center for Defense Information lists a number of articles in this week's Russia Weekly, including one from The Globe and Mail of Canada on the subject of terrorists, a steady drumbeat it seems of superpowers both faded and new. The story is from a refugee camp in the Caucasus. According to the Russian government the site of a secret Afghan terrorist training camp filled with hundreds of Taliban mercenaries and 1500 Chechen guerillas.

It goes on to say that the camp in a narrow gorge is an unlikely place for such an operation although that has not deterred the Russians from their propaganda campaign.

Despite the false allegations and the propaganda war of the Russian government that is being waged at much at Georgia as it is at "terrorists", a threat against which Georgia is defenseless.

An analysis from the World Socialist Web Site points out that Clinton's visit to Portugal, Germany, Russia and the Ukraine takes place amidst growing tensions between America and Europe. Trade conflicts are a major source of contention. According to the BBC, "Despite the rhetoric of global cooperation, the reality is that the economic relationship between the EU and the US is looking increasingly rocky… a failure to resolve a raft of trade disputes has led to a climate of pessimism in which the expansion of free trade itself has come under threat."

President Chirac of France has called for a European Defense structure independent of NATO. France's Le Monde,I. writes "to assert Europe's authority is also to dispute the American anti- missile defence project", about which Jacques Chirac repeated that is doesn't only concern Washington and Moscow, it breaks strategic balances acquired only with difficulty and would renew the world's arms race.

America's preoccupation with rogue states seems to be having the unintended consequence of alienating friends and foes alike and de-stabilizing the current balance of power. Although that balance of power, according to an article by Paul Goble, seems to be more a concern of Russia than of the United States. This may be because Russia may like to see itself as a major power all evidence to the contrary.

The US perspective is that democracy and free markets are universally accepted as values and that any divergence from them can come only on the part of rogue elements. "Russian officials routinely have objected to American efforts to prevent Moscow or others from cooperating with Iran or other countries that the U.S. has labeled as "rogue states". Such efforts, these officials have argued, reflect the interests of the United States rather than those of the international community."

Goble qualifies that assertion by adding that the Russian approach has its problems as well. He says that it ignores the growing evidence of "increasing international agreement" and "even more importantly the compelling need to for a rationale to mobilize public opinion. Maintaining the balance of power is seldom enough, containing a rogue state can be."

That last remark might just be a major clue to how America now operates. The leadership assumes "increasing international agreement" even where the evidence is to the contrary such as with the Iraq sanctions and the U.N. Security Council. Promoting assumptions that the US arrives at single-handedly, public opinion is then galvanized and mobilized. "Rogue states" becomes the rallying cry of an empire in need of enemies, or at least, an industrial-military machine in need of self-justification. Russia has fallen down on the job and as Mr. Putin slyly intimated, might even be considered for junior partnership instead. Each empire can then grant the other "carte blanche" to deal with their 'terrorists' as they please.

What seems to be evolving is the 21st century version of the good ole, good guys versus the bad guys scenario. However, inn this version the good guys are huge and heavily armed and the bad guys are not only iconoclastic but small and isolated. How convenient for the heroes!

Battle will be fought for the "people's hearts and minds" primarily through the TV set and what real world battles are waged will be fought from a safe distance with superior equipment against small enemies as was the case with Yugoslavia and Iraq. The attempt to make a failsafe security stronghold out of the North American continent might be a reflection of the unease that accompanies militarism. It seems to be costing this country a lot in the way of one of the oldest of security systems - friends.