The Bush Administration has a sluggish, low-key missile defense effort under way: a limited ground-based system deployed in Alaska and California, which won't be much of a deterrent in today's world, and a still underdeveloped sea-based system modeled on the U.S. Navy's Aegis vertical launch system.
Putin is becoming more anti-Western in foreign policy, the vertical of power is hardening into a system, liberals are loosing influence in the Kremlin are replaced by the Chekists.