[AkbarGulag]

As far as America shooting down a satelite is concerned, the gas inside is a smokescreen imo.

I saw the news article where they said it had never been done before... never been done by the U.S.A maybe, China did this succesfully some months ago.

China and Russia are currently pushing for a treaty banning the use of weapons to destroy satelites and things in orbit. Much like the rush to conduct nuclear tests before the test ban treaty, this is merely an attempt by the U.S.A to redress a technilogical imbalance before any treaty discussions.

As far as Putin and Russia are concerned, Russia spends no more on arms than say, the U.K or France or Japan. The U.S.A spends possibly more than the rest of the planet combined. With that in mind, everything is just posturing. Russia has a massive nuclear detterent, making them unlikely to ever be invaded, aside from maybe a suicidal enemy. The missile shield could possibly negate this last defence for the Russian state, thus the new rush by Russia to upgrade their technical conventional forces. The commitment to numbers will be small, but the russian state has a long history (at least since WWII) of having things on the drawing board in the eventuality they may need to produce something at a moments notice.

The new sub under construction in Russia, with a crush depth of 450m is a prime example. This is far greater than the 250m boasted by new model American subs.

There is no threat from Russia, there is merely a response to current trends.