Cold War mentality?

[JALU3]

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22932206-912,00.html?from=public_rss

Russia warns that intercepter missiles over russian airspace may result in retalitory strike.

[CCIP]

I don't think that has anything to do with mentality. One wonders what the Pentagon would be thinking if a high-speed, high-altitude missile appeared in their airspace!

[JALU3]

Where did it come from?
Where is it going?
Is it a threat to us?
If it is a threat, eliminate it.
If it is not, contact State Department, and ask why we weren't informed ahead of time.

[CCIP]

Same questions here, I think. I think the Russians, in their usual senseless fashion, are just warning of the "worst case misidentification" scenario. Mind you, even in the cold war they were far more careful with that red button in practice than feared.


That said, who's surprised to see Russia flexing their muscle again and being mistrustful of others? If anything this mentality well pre-dates the Cold War.

[JALU3]

The West has always looked towards Moscow and St. Petersburg with a sence of foreboding and hesitation . . . all the way back to when it back to the days of the Czars . . . nothing new there.
It's just from my perspective I fear a new Warsaw Pact replacement possibly coming from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation . . . with Communist China (as opposed to Democratic China (Republic of China)), Russia . . . and with a possible future member being Iran . . . if that ever happens . . . and if tensions continue to mount . . . back to a bi-polar international world . . . as I don't think it would be very multi-polar with two big organizations existing again.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Where did it come from?
In this scenario, Poland.

Where is it going?
Here's a rub. The interceptor is itself basically a ballistic rocket. If it is overflying Russian territory, there is no way for them to be sure whether it is an offensive or a defensive rocket, and in any case a defensive rocket be used as an limited offensive one with relative ease (just like a SAM can be used for antiship attack).

In any case, even in the case of a fully defensive rocket, there are certainly sovereignty concerns to consider with shooting your SAMs (a ABM is basically a SAM) into other people's territory.

Is it a threat to us?
Here's the other rub. If you don't go by intentions (ultimately blind faith in America and Poland), there's no way to know, at least not until the uncertainty circle associated with the tracked ballistic trajectory gets small enough that it definitely doesn't cover anything important, or of course, until it makes the intercept (if it does).

If it is a threat, eliminate it.
If it is not, contact State Department, and ask why we weren't informed ahead of time.
They won't know for sure until its flight terminates, which will be a little late if it was a nuke, no?

[Chock]

I think this guy needs to take another look at his atlas before coming up with scenarios; if there were to be a ballistic missile launched from Iran at Poland, it would have to be launched from the very Northern-most tip of Iran and aimed at the very Northern-most tip of Poland to even come near Russian airspace as, for most of its flight, it would be above the troposhpere if it were a ballistic missile. And even if that happened, presumably Russia's 'automatic defence system' as this guy calls it, would detect it way before any system in Poland, and presumably react to it 'automatically' too, in which case, the scenario wouldn't even occur if the Russian 'automatic system' is so all-fired brilliant at detecting stuff and equally trigger happy.

Besides which, what are we in, Star Wars here? 'automatic' my arse, some bored sh*tless corporals sitting watching radar screens is hardly HAL 900. Furthermore, I must have missed the part where Iran declared war on Poland, when did they announce that one?

:D Chock

[NEON DEON]

I think this guy needs to take another look at his atlas before coming up with scenarios; if there were to be a ballistic missile launched from Iran at Poland, it would have to be launched from the very Northern-most tip of Iran and aimed at the very Northern-most tip of Poland to even come near Russian airspace as, for most of its flight, it would be above the troposhpere if it were a ballistic missile. And even if that happened, presumably Russia's 'automatic defence system' as this guy calls it, would detect it way before any system in Poland, and presumably react to it 'automatically' too, in which case, the scenario wouldn't even occur if the Russian 'automatic system' is so all-fired brilliant at detecting stuff and equally trigger happy.

Besides which, what are we in, Star Wars here? 'automatic' my arse, some bored sh*tless corporals sitting watching radar screens is hardly HAL 900. Furthermore, I must have missed the part where Iran declared war on Poland, when did they announce that one?

:D Chock

It happened this morning when you were at the toilet for an hour and fifteen repenting for last night's sins! ;)