The U.S.-built Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors planned for Poland might be directed against "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran, but no one pretends that the Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptors that can shoot down short-range or intermediate-range ballistic missiles or the stationing of American troops in Poland are directed at any country other than Russia.

And the reason why Poland feels that it needs Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptor batteries and American forces is Russia's threat that Poland is "making itself a target."

The West similarly responds to its perceptions of Russian hostility by using rhetoric and undertaking actions that produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. Russian insistence that further expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is unacceptable, for example, routinely produces the response that Russia cannot be allowed to dictate NATO policy. Both the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine have severe internal problems that NATO, by its own criteria, normally would deem to be too severe to permit membership in the foreseeable future.

However, simply because Russia objects to the two countries of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO, they almost certainly will be invited to accede to the alliance in the not too far distant future.

It similarly often seems that Russia's objections to the ballistic missile defense deployments in the former Soviet-led Warsaw Pact member states of Poland and the Czech Republic have simply made the American administration more determined to forge ahead, whether or not these are the most logical locations if the purpose is to defend against missiles launched from Iran or North Korea.

Most analysts agree that it would be a mistake to call the present standoff between Russia and the West a new Cold War, and it is true that the ideological divide that characterized the Cold War is absent today.

What does resemble the Cold War, however, is the action-reaction nature of the rhetoric and policies that Russia and the West adopt, and the way in which each side says things and adopts policies, intended to improve its own defense, which are immediately perceived by the other side as undermining its security and demanding a response. The result is a spiral that makes both less secure. In the Cold War it led to the arms race.

The danger is that this will happen again. The sad irony is that years before we know whether ballistic missile defense works -- in other words, whether it can offer Europe effective protection against a missile attack -- it already will have severely undermined European security.

(Margot Light is an emeritus professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)