US to station new nuclear arms in Germany.

[Catfish]

At least this time they did not put on a pretext, being stationed against Iraqi missiles :03:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-22/us-will-station-new-nuclear-weapons-germany-against-russia

https://www.rt.com/news/316186-germany-us-nukes-upgrade/

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-nuclear-weapons-germany-russia-concerned-american-plans-add-stockpile-2108265

http://www.zdf.de/frontal-21/stationierung-neuer-us-atomwaffen-in-deutschland-russland-beklagt-verletzung-des-atomwaffensperrvertrages-40197860.html


Why? The hell, WHY? :nope:

[Oberon]

Well, we are in a second Cold War now. :hmmm:

[Catfish]

The peaceful NATO has expanded its borders against signed treaties from 1990 on, seems now they want their 'cold war' to get hot, with Europe as the battlefield :nope:

[Betonov]

I wish we had another Tito.
He had the common sense to unalign us and keep us out of the BS of the cold war.

[Respenus]

Playing the devil's advocate here, but the USA has "always" had nuclear weapons on German soil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing). It was to be a front line state in case the Cold War got hot and while this is no longer the case, the bombs were never removed. What has happened is that the US's new toys, the W61-12, got delivered for service in Germany. On the grand scale of things, gravity bombs with only a maximum yield of 50kt are not something that should cause distress to any of the nuclear parties.

Of course, with the current rhetoric being what it is, anything can be taken as provocation (like Russia moving Iskanders and Backfires to Crimea).

[Oberon]

The peaceful NATO has expanded its borders against signed treaties from 1990 on, seems now they want their 'cold war' to get hot, with Europe as the battlefield :nope:

Pffft, it will get as hot as the last one did.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/135/345154333_807ba1c967.jpg

[Betonov]

Playing the devil's advocate here...

True that. But I'd preffer if they'd start dissmantling the bloody things.

[Catfish]

Seems the 'weirdos' are right, Germany is not a sovereign state.
Maggie T. tried to undermine the reunification of Germany all the time but could not prevent it (thanks again), but this reunification came at the price of some old post war papers being still in effect. The US can basically do anything here, and we can protest against it as much as we want, to no effect :nope:

[mapuc]

Well, we are in a second Cold War now. :hmmm:

And lets hope it stay cold.

Markus

[Rockstar]

The peaceful NATO has expanded its borders against signed treaties from 1990 on, seems now they want their 'cold war' to get hot, with Europe as the battlefield :nope:


According to Mikhail Gorbachev former secretary general of the Soviet Union said: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years."

All that was agreed upon was until Soviet forces had completed their withdrawal from the former GDR, only German territorial defense units not integrated into NATO would be deployed in that territory.

There would be no increase in the numbers of troops or equipment of U.S., British and French forces stationed in Berlin.

Once Soviet forces had withdrawn, German forces assigned to NATO could be deployed in the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed there.

[Platapus]

The concept of "nuclear sharing" has been contentious ever since the formation of the NPT.

In my opinion it is an example of following the letter of the treaty while at the same time deliberately violating the intent of the treaty.

It is the position of the United States that if a state of war comes to be, the NPT is immediately invalidated so there could not be any violation in times of war. So our nuclear sharing program is simply preparing for the time when the NPT becomes void.

The following is an interesting article discussing how the concept of nuclear sharing was introduced in the deliberations and negotiations of the NPT.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150128114502/http://www.opanal.org/Articles/cancun/can-Donnelly.htm

[Skybird]

Strange. Some years ago it was demanded by two German parties that America withdraws all nuclear weapons from German soil. Back then Washington answered their request by saying that those weapons were too old, it would be too dangerous to move them, they could break up, so better leave them where they are and do not touch them.

I assume meanwhile the corrosion has advanced that much that now the stain stabilises all moving parts and threads again, so that now it is safe again to move them.

[Oberon]

I assume meanwhile the corrosion has advanced that much that now the stain stabilises all moving parts and threads again, so that now it is safe again to move them.

Nonsense, they've corroded so badly that they've turned into brand new and improved weapons. :03: The laws of entropy are communist. :yeah:

[Catfish]

According to Mikhail Gorbachev former secretary general of the Soviet Union said: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years." ....

This is strange, because for what i read the freeze of NATO expansion was one of the prerequisites, for a reunification of Germany. Later, the Russians were not amused to see that their cordon sanitaire was shrinking, with a West-oriented Poland bordering the mainland, and a likewise west-oriented big central Germany at the center. Then Scandinavia, Turkey, Krim, Ukraine, Middle East a.s.o.

All the fuss is about a certain prewarning time, so that any country can react in case of a nuclear attack, in time. This was the basis, for the "balance of terror".
Any attempt to reduce the time while discriminating the other side, increases the threat.

The recent US weapon "accomplishments" allow a fast attack with no reaction time possible. Meanwhile old news:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/03/x51a_hyper_success_report/
http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21578522-hypersonic-weapons-building-vehicles-fly-five-times-speed-sound

And regardless of those US nuclear weapons stationed on german ground, new US weapon systems allow a nuclear strike against any spot on earth, within a few minutes, no warning time, not even a hint on who fired it. No wonder not only Russia is not amused.
Isn't that already enough, for de-stabilization? Do we need to park those weapons in Russia's front garden, if a scramjet can reach them within minutes?

But the threat of a small local, limited war would be just nice, to prove the NATO's right to live.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y174/penaeus/eiicdfhg_zpsg2emjkv1.png (http://s5.photobucket.com/user/penaeus/media/eiicdfhg_zpsg2emjkv1.png.html)

:shifty:

[Oberon]

Clausewitz was Prussian, wasn't he?

"The worst of all conditions in which a belligerent can find himself is to be utterly defenseless."

Now hindsight is a wonderful thing, and seems to be extremely popular in Germany at the moment, but like it or not we're back to butting heads with Russia now. At least this time the majority of the action will take place in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe rather than in the middle of Germany.
Sure, there could have been a period of rapproachment in the 1990s, there should have been and it was a massive missed opportunity. You can hardly blame the Eastern European states for wanting to join NATO though, I mean they would have done anything to get in, because in their mind they were only one wrong step away from another Hungary 1956. Seeing Russian tanks roll up to Pristina airport probably only cemented that opinion. Even now, the Baltic states are convinced that within the decade Russia will attack them. I think that it's highly unlikely such a thing will happen, but the Baltic states have spent the last couple of centuries being kicked around like a football between Sweden, Russia and Germany, one can hardly blame them for being worried.
In regards to the X51a, that's due to enter service...in about a decade, most nations are working on their own hypersonic weaponry. Russia already has a hypersonic ballistic missile system, as does India, and both of them are working on a short range hypersonic cruise missile the BrahMos-II. The Chinese have an interesting design called the WU-14 which is a hypersonic glide vehicle, designed to defeat the current ballistic missile interception systems, meaning that to intercept it we need to turn to railguns and lasers. Warfare is changing, very very quickly and whoever fails to change with it faces becoming obsolete.

In short, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but not particularly useful. Detente with Russia right now would be good, but I don't think it's feasible without essentially telling Eastern Europe 'You're on your own kiddos' which would result in a massive Eastern European arms race.

Lots of misinformation going around, I see a report by the Frankfurter Rundschau claims the upgraded B61 can "be set to explode at various strengths of up to ten-times the devastation inflicted at Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945." which insinuates an upgrade to its explosive power when in fact, the B61 mod 12 has actually had its destructive power dialed back from 400kt to 50kt, but its accuracy increased from 170m to 30m. In fact, the life expansion program of the B61 should hopefully lead to the retirement of the B83 and that's a megaton gravity dropped bomb. In short, the US is reducing the destructive power fo the nuclear weapons but increasing their accuracy.
Does this mean that they're more likely to use a 'bunker buster' nuclear style weapon? Perhaps, I mean we had this concern back with the Bush administration but nothing has yet come of it.

Still, it's unlikely anything will come of it all, we've been punting nuclear bombs around Western Europe since the 1950s and no-one has blown us all to smithereens yet. It's more likely that we'll be nuked by some nutjob with a suitcase full of X-ray machine parts than it is that we'll be nuked by Russia. :dead:

[Betonov]

Nukes are good for PR stunts by doom sayers and fear mongerers.
You can't sell ''hypersonic'' to the droolers that actually believe those idiots.
Sure, I hate nukes. They're a wild card. Democratic goverments and autocrats fear using them but there's enough nutjobs to have an orgasm just thinking about owning a nuke and using it and for one of those there's 10 greedy bastards willing to sell out a city full of people to the nutjobs.

That's why we should focus on rogue organisations and not on the Russians. Under Putin Russian nukes are the safest as they ever been in the entire history. Face it, if the world hadn't seen an incident under Yeltsin, it sure as hell won't under Emperor Vlad.

[Catfish]

^ That.

And, quoting Oberon:
... It's more likely that we'll be nuked by some nutjob with a suitcase full of X-ray machine parts than it is that we'll be nuked by Russia. This is why i think there is no need to provoke Russia all the time, and behave like aggressive morons. Putin is as much a democrat as Russia is a democracy, but he also is the product of how the West behaved in the 1990ies.

Listening to Hungary, Poland and the baltic states with their fear of a russian invasion is one thing, but really following their leaders' ideas and planting miltary hardware everywhere to please them, is an entirely different thing.

[Jimbuna]

That's why we should focus on rogue organisations and not on the Russians. Under Putin Russian nukes are the safest as they ever been in the entire history. Face it, if the world hadn't seen an incident under Yeltsin, it sure as hell won't under Emperor Vlad.

Agreed but I sometimes wonder what the 'nutjobs' who prop up Putin might be thinking.

[Betonov]

Agreed but I sometimes wonder what the 'nutjobs' who prop up Putin might be thinking.

Putin is a control junkie.
His nutjobs are firmly under his yoke and if anyone goes out of line the FSB has a certain tea brand to serve.

[Oberon]

Putin is a control junkie.
His nutjobs are firmly under his yoke and if anyone goes out of line the FSB has a certain tea brand to serve.

Actually, I'm surprised that Putin is still in power. I guess the military reforms and upgrades have done enough to please his masters that he hasn't been shipped off into retirement. The Syrian mission is probably part of this too.

In regards to antagonising the Russians, it's all a part of the Great Game really, the US maintains its role as the top power, but the EU, Russia and China all vey to try and either undermine the US or position themselves so that they benefit from what the US does. The Middle East is fracturing into three blocs right now, so pretty soon we're going to be looking at a form of proxy conflict there with the Saudis, Iran and the radical Islamic bloc looking to establish dominance, and smaller blocs, Kurds and the like, looking to exploit the situation and carve out their own bit of sand.

Besides, to be honest Catfish, given how well the EU has organised its response to the refugee crisis, can we really trust Europe to organise its own defence? :/\\!!

[Catfish]

...Besides, to be honest Catfish, given how well the EU has organised its response to the refugee crisis, can we really trust Europe to organise its own defence? :/\\!!

I see your point. And are you a part of Europe, or not? And why only about Europe?

How about the five eyes taking some of the refugees, and show a bit of responsibility then?
Have only heard of Canada, about it's military offering to house 10,000 refugees. There are around 45,000 coming daily. How would Cameron handle the situation? Move to Scotland and rebuild the Hadrian wall? :hmmm:

Europe is not a nation, so it is not that easy to reach decisions. And then look at Hungary. Weapons anytime, refugees not.

[Rockstar]

One thing I think too which sets NATO apart from Russia is NATO doesnt force anyone to join, membership is strictly voluntary.

[Oberon]

I see your point. And are you a part of Europe, or not? And why only about Europe?

I'll let you know whenever we have this bloody referendum. :nope:

[Jimbuna]

Putin is a control junkie.
His nutjobs are firmly under his yoke and if anyone goes out of line the FSB has a certain tea brand to serve.

I'm not totally convinced of that Anze....Putin is replaceable and probably would be if the men in the background at the Kremlin think it is in their best interests to do so.

Not even in China is any individual bigger than the party collective.

[Betonov]

I'm not totally convinced of that Anze....Putin is replaceable and probably would be if the men in the background at the Kremlin think it is in their best interests to do so.

Not even in China is any individual bigger than the party collective.

I know what you and Oberon are getting at.
I was refering to outside friendly dictators and sattelites. Like Assad.

The godfathers of Russia, those that can oust Putin, also known as the oligarchy are also too smart to play with nukes. They already made significant investments in Russia and abroad and nukes have a problem of destroying said investments. This is not a James Bond movie. Real villians won't destroy what brings them money.

[Oberon]

Another thing to bear in mind, that although the US has indeed increased its presense in Europe and is looking to increase it a bit further (rumour has it that Lakenheath is looking to get some F-22s which will be nice to see) it's still nowhere near the size of the forces that were deployed in West Germany during the Cold War.

[Jeff-Groves]

It's the Beer and Lederhosen we must protect!
:D

[ikalugin]

I'm not totally convinced of that Anze....Putin is replaceable and probably would be if the men in the background at the Kremlin think it is in their best interests to do so.

Not even in China is any individual bigger than the party collective.
Putin is not replaceable. Even if we disregard the fact that he holds the top end political power (and not some shady "oligarhs", you may remember what happened to Khodorkovsky when he tried to get power in his hands), he is still the lynchpin of the political balance here.

[ikalugin]

Regarding hypersonics. There are 4 main kinds, both that already exist and that would enter service during our lifetimes.
- MaRVs on various BMs. Considered, developed and even tested by more or less anyone (R36M2 was meant to go with mixed load of regular 1mt RVs and the 150kt MaRVs, with 80m CEP or so).
- Hypersonic gliders launched by BMs. Considered, developed and tested by most large ICBM users (ie US, USSR/Russia, PRC). Those gliders would probably go into service on future Russian ICBMs as a follow up to the MaRV technology.
- Hypersonic gliders on non strategic weapons. Considered, developed and tested by the nations mentioned above. However those weapons are still bulky/heavy due to the problems with propultion (we use Kh22 derived booster to launch those from the Backfires in test for example).
- Grown up supersonic cruise missiles (ie Brahmos-2 and Circon), the issue there is again size/mass, and thus those weapons would be still quite difficult to carry on a tactical aircraft.

[ikalugin]

Another thing to bear in mind, that although the US has indeed increased its presense in Europe and is looking to increase it a bit further (rumour has it that Lakenheath is looking to get some F-22s which will be nice to see) it's still nowhere near the size of the forces that were deployed in West Germany during the Cold War.
The problem is that modern Armed Forces are smaller than their cold war equivalents and even if our rearmament goes per plan we still are at a disatvantage in terms of conventional arms balance.

Thus even "small" changes can lead to significant changes in the balance.

[Oberon]

The problem is that modern Armed Forces are smaller than their cold war equivalents and even if our rearmament goes per plan we still are at a disatvantage in terms of conventional arms balance.

Thus even "small" changes can lead to significant changes in the balance.

True, although I'm sure you've got a warehouse of T-54s somewhere that can be thrown in as cannon fodder if needed. If they actually start up...

Jokes aside I do get what you mean, but the strength of Russia has always been its reserves. But I can see why you'd be concerned, I mean you've lost falling back territory which was one of your strengths during the GPW, and most armies are adapting to winter which was another strength, so really the main strength of Russia, like China is the manpower reserves.

[Catfish]

And no one understands why Russia supports a few separatists in the eastern Ukraine, instead of helping to build up a NATO military base. Unbelievable :hmmm:

[Oberon]

And no one understands why Russia supports a few separatists in the eastern Ukraine, instead of helping to build up a NATO military base. Unbelievable :hmmm:

Oh, I think most in Europe understand, but it's all about fear, isn't it? NATO fears that the Russians will attack so it wants to put enough territory between the NATO heartlands and Russia to combat that. Russia fears NATO will attack so it pushes back against this.
Neither side wants to attack the other, but both sides are scared that the other will strike first.
Second Cold War. :03:

[Betonov]

Both sides are morons.

[ikalugin]

Having a neutral buffer (which Ukraine was even for West/east fluctuations) sounds like a good idea. And if we look at past history USSR/Russia were fine with neutral buffers such as Finland, Sweden and Austria.

[Jimbuna]

So who takes into consideration what these so-called 'neutral buffers' think?

[Sailor Steve]

Both sides are morons.
But...but...but...Our side are the good guys, and the other guys are evil!
(So say both sides every chance they get)

[Betonov]

But...but...but...Our side are the good guys, and the other guys are evil!
(So say both sides every chance they get)

We're a NATO and EU country with a substantial amount of Russian investment (and perhaps just becasue we're EU and NATO) so we're both sides :)
Were morons squared :doh:

[ikalugin]

So who takes into consideration what these so-called 'neutral buffers' think?
Sadly noone. However being armed and neutral, atleast to me, sounds like a better deal than being disarmed and non neutral, as you rely on the alliance considerations for security and thus outsource your independence.

Plus you make your country a target for the other side.