Congratulations!

Congratulations and best wishes to newly elected President Barack Obama! It's exciting to witness history in the making.

But note that amid the many headlines about Mr. Obama's election win comes this eye-catching banner in today's International Herald Tribune: "Russia to Deploy Missiles Near Poland."

In his first state of the nation address, Russia President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russia will deploy missiles near Poland in response to U.S. missile defense plans. Russia will also install equipment to disrupt a missile defense system the U.S. is planning to implement in Poland and the Czech Republic, new NATO members. The system is intended to defend against missiles from such countries as Iran.

The article also states that Mr. Medvedev "blamed the U.S. for the war in Georgia and the global financial crisis. He said he hoped Barack Obama would act to improve relations with Russia but did not offer congratulations to the president-elect."

Mr. Medvedev said that "it is up to the U.S., not the Kremlin, to seek to improve relations."

Very soon, possibly, we may all be concerned about foreign policy issues that were not very visible just a few days ago.

The president-elect faces many significant challenges.