Missile defense in Poland and Central Europe is a Bush-era by-product that, thankfully, hasn't been followed through. Russia is not the withdrawn, bankrupt state it was 20 years ago after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and given that they will become one of the world's largest energy producers (and already are, and already do have the ability to starve Europe of oil and gas), why would the US want to provoke them?
Russia is VERY sensitive to military issues, and as such, a policy of waiting isn't necessarily a bad thing. And things haven't gotten bad enough with Iran (which was stated is the point of the missile defense systems) to warrant actually placing them.
I see this as a good move. A strong American dollar and a recovering economy is far more of a buffer against Russia than missiles are.
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