US to station new nuclear arms in Germany.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by 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

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Once Soviet forces had withdrawn, German forces assigned to NATO could be deployed in the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed there.

[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]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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. The laws of entropy are communist.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

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...uccess_report/
http://www.economist.com/news/techno...es-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.

[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.

[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]

Originally Posted by Betonov

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.

[Rockstar]

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