Tom Ricks asks:

I have no idea where Hilary Clinton is on all this. Am I wrong or is she floundering in her job? 

I’m far more impressed with Secretary Clinton than I ever was with Senator Clinton, not least of all because of the forthcoming Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, an excellent idea so stunningly obvious in retrospect that it’s amazing it never existed before Clinton arrived at Foggy Bottom. This is another way of saying "I agree with Clinton’s priorities," though, not necessarily "Clinton is a successful secretary of state," as I don’t think the evidence is in for making that judgment. There’s been no policy battle she’s waged with the White House or the Pentagon and lost, for instance, nor is she snubbed. This administration likes to set foreign policy in the White House, and so Clinton isn’t disadvantaged relative to any of her cabinet peers. As for the institutional heft her bureaucracy can’t wield in contrast with the Pentagon, measures like the QDDR are designed to reverse that structural flaw. That’s how a forward-thinking secretary of state acts.

On the narrower question of missile defense, read what Clinton said this morning and what Gates said yesterday morning. I’m not sure who delivered the stronger case. But there’s no daylight between the two, and Clinton thoroughly held her own end down:

Two of our allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, were very willing to host parts of the previous planned system, and we deeply appreciate that. We will continue to cooperate closely with both nations, for instance through the rotation of a Patriot battery in Poland and close missile-defense research and development with Czech companies. As we explore land-based interceptors going forward, we have made it clear that those two countries will be at the top of the list. And let me underscore that we are bound together by our common commitment as NATO allies and also by deep historical, economic and cultural ties that will never be broken.

 The lady’s not for turning.