The US has long been wanting a Missile Defence System in Europe. Ostensibly, this is to protect us Europeans from threats in the Middle East. Of course, it has the side effect of protecting the US from threats in Russia too.
President Putin has said he'll target Europe if the system gets the go-ahead, a move that's no doubt designed to make us Europeans think about this. The trouble is, there's almost no news coverage about this in Europe at the moment! What the hell? Everything I could find came from US news sources.
I'm told that the missile inventory suggested (14) is way too small to be useful, and still costs billions. It's also not much use against newer missiles. This could lead one to think the US really is doing all this for Middle East purposes, since they don't have thousands of missiles at their disposal. That said, Patriot missiles didn't stop any Scuds from hitting the ground in Gulf War I, so they might be in with a chance after all.
It just seems odd the US should be pushing this - Europe could do it just fine on it's own (possibly buying US technology?), and would more than likely avoid Russian related issues.
There are way too many politics here for me to understand. Where are those woolly, under-informed and over-simplifying European news sources when you need them?
Update 5pm: Stuff at the BBC, Guardian, Times and The Australian