I’m not quite ready to call this the start of “a new Cold War”, but I have to admit that the slightly cooled relationship ‘twixt the United States and Russia is worrisome. The confrontation between Bush and Putin at the G8 summit brought to light a few little issues I wasn’t aware of at all.

Seeking to ease tensions before the meeting, Bush said Thursday that the missile shield dispute is ‘not something we should hyperventilate about’.

Russia believes it is the sole target of the US missile shield, which would be in Poland and the Czech Republic, and Putin has threatened to aim Russian missiles at European targets if the deployment goes ahead.

Bush said he was ‘looking forward’ to meeting Putin despite the dispute. ‘I will explain to him once again that a missile defence shield is aimed at a rogue regime that may try to hold Russia and or Europe hostage.‘

Yikes. That’d be one hell of a “rogue regime” to hold an entire continent and a near-superpower hostage. Even Hitler couldn’t manage that, and he had a big-ass army. Frankly, I don’t really think a little missile shield would be capable of keeping a rogue regime that powerful at bay.