From the Editors of the New York Times:  If you did not spend last weekend tuned in to news from the NATO summit meeting in Lisbon, you probably missed the breakthrough on European missile defense.

NATO leaders agreed to jointly develop a shield intended to intercept short- and medium-range missiles. And Russia agreed to cooperate, sharing intelligence and radar. …

Republican senators who are now resisting ratifying the New Start arms treaty should certainly have been paying more attention to the Lisbon meeting. They have been so busy claiming, inaccurately, that the treaty would constrain future missile defense systems that they apparently failed to notice real progress toward the only effective system that current technology permits. …

It is probably too much to ask the Republicans to congratulate President Obama on moving European missile defense forward. But their indifference to all that happened in Lisbon is further proof that their opposition to New Start is nothing more than petty obstructionism.  (photo: AP)

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