Russia blames US in missile row

[CCIP]

"Putin using this for propaganda purposes" - yep, totally agreed. Any administration can take lessons on how to use anything for propaganda purposes from Putin. He is a consummate politicians and has gotten away with using far, far worse things for propaganda. Most propaganda for him has been internal.

I disagree with assessing him as a threat in some sort of Cold War sense. He's not a threat, not a partner, he's just a guy with a huge country and a heap of historical baggage. He and his people are much smarter than that. Russia has real power and strategic interests and has no less right to them than anyone else. As it stands, Russia is neither a democracy, nor a USSR, nor a Russian Empire, and they're certainly not threatening your countries or ways of life in ways that some, ahem, other elements today might be. I would rather the West recognized them and worked with them more pragmatically; frankly I don't think you'll be seeing Soviet tanks anywhere in Europe anytime soon, but European tanks might well be need to run on Russian-produced gas for the foreseeable future.

I think the West is in the causeless-revenge-mode (for what?) again. In that same mode, they blew the chance to help a real democracy get established in Russia; now it's too late. It's not too late not to antagonize the current state though and work with them on peaceful terms.

[dean_acheson]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I think the West is in the causeless-revenge-mode (for what?) again. In that same mode, they blew the chance to help a real democracy get established in Russia; now it's too late. It's not too late not to antagonize the current state though and work with them on peaceful terms....

I'm sorry, but that's just a plain stupid statement. If anything it'd be the other way; it'd be pretty pathetic for Russia to stoop to the level of wooing a good-for-nothing rogue state. They might get a few bucks selling stuff that the Iranians want but, I assure you, Russia could (and in my view, should) do without Iran.

Well, I'm sure that my above comments are pretty stupid, I've never really been accused of being very bright. But I did write my thesis for my second master's degree on the I.M.F.'s bailout program vis-a-vis the Russian Government from 1992-96, so I do know a bit about that, even if my knowledge is very imperfect, and how the west was supposed to baby-sit the third Rome into enlightened liberalism is beyond me.

Russia seems to think they need Iran, the former continues to sell the latter nuclear equiptment despite the crazed ruminations of the current glorious leader of Iran. Of course, given Russia's history of pogroms, it probably doesn't bother the Russian leadership very much that an Anti-Semite has such weapons. Maybe Russia thinks that a nuclear Iran might help them out with their security problems, but that would be pretty stupid.

I know that the U.S. government stupidly sold nuclear tech. to the Shah, but that was the same administration that signed onto the ABM treaty, a lot of bright ideas came out of the Nixon Administation....

Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.

[XabbaRus]

So how would America feel if Russia placed ABM missiles in Cuba and a radar in Mexico?

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

So how would America feel if Russia placed ABM missiles in Cuba and a radar in Mexico?

Placing defensive missiles of this type on Cuba would not be threatening at all. We Americans could simply destroy Russia completely and efficiently with Trident D-5's if we needed to. No ABM system in Cuba would stop that. And if this hypothetical Russian ABM system was deployed on Cuba and was of the size and scope of our current ABM plans, it wouldn't be able to stop many of our Minuteman land based ICBM's either (we have 500 of those active). Simply put, Putin is paranoid over nothing.

I agree with the others above. The USA is unable to stop a Russian nuclear strike, even with this system deployed.

[dean_acheson]

1. If Russia wants to develop an ABM system (which the US has offered to help them with) then I doubt we would raise too much of a stink about it, as long as we were assured that there were not Mirvs attached to these "ABM" missles.

2. We don't have alot of say if Mexico lets Russia puts up a radar system. I mean, what is Mexico going to do, boo Ms. America or send waves of illegal immigrants across our borders?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by dean_acheson

1. If Russia wants to develop an ABM system (which the US has offered to help them with) then I doubt we would raise too much of a stink about it, as long as we were assured that there were not Mirvs attached to these "ABM" missles.

2. We don't have alot of say if Mexico lets Russia puts up a radar system. I mean, what is Mexico going to do, boo Ms. America or send waves of illegal immigrants across our borders?

You certainly mean all that rethoric only, knowing that it all is not so simplistic as you try to make it appear. At no costs your nation would accept without reacting to be encircled by more and more russian bases functioning as spy posts and tripwires, and close to your borders. Through pressure via internationaol fiance system, and eco nomical measures, the US very well has a significant ammount of power to influence middle and south america, althiugh that immense power currently is picked away at a bit by new polticial alloiances forming up in these regions, and directed against the US. And as you already admitted, you would not ignore a Russian ABM set up in a manner that it could put your ICBM-MIRVs in danger - you said "as long as they do not arm them with MIRVs". So you would only accept them to do what does not seriously question your demand for dominance and unilateralism.

Those bases Bush wants to built: the one onclues most modern hightech equipement and radar, both could reach far into the russian territory, second where there are silos, you could put the declared missiles into - or not, and third it means to send more american soldiers to the Russian border, that would function as tripwires. Think of the Russians what you want, but they do not have another option than to see these plans as an intended provocation, and attempt to strategically seal them off a bit more. they also do not have any reason to trust you, since NATO's excessive expansion to the east was against what has been promsied to the Russians in the early nineties - that there would be a relatively neutral bufferzone between both blocks. Instead, they have NATO at their borders now. that the Eatern givernment asked to join NATO is no argument. That somebody asks for something does not give him the right to demand that his question must be given a positive answer. NATO could have delayed or rejected the requests. The growing Russian aggressiveness may be fostered by their new wealth (energy ressources), but it is also motivated by the constant erosion of trust into NATO's political reliability. If I were them, I would have come to exactly the same conclusions like they did. They already sent one reqaction that just days ago I "predicted" - they have made true their threat to block any western plans on Kosovo. And this is only the beginning, there will coming more from Moscow. For example with regard to the UN security council. Cooperation is something that for the forseeable future you can forget. If someone thinks "no problem, let's ignore the UN like we already did", just consider that Russia exports not only energy, but also nuclear technology, and military goods.

If the Americans want their damn ABm, they should opt for the navy version of the two, and sation the according platforms in the Mediterranean. no need to mess with then Russian by placing the so far inferior of the two versions directly at the Russian front door. This showdown is absolutely unnecessary, imo.

If a man shows up at the garden door of my house with a tele and a gun in his hands and time and again sweeping my house with it, I would not care what he would tell me about garden-photography, but show him why it is a good idea not stay too long there.

[fatty]

Not much of a surprise here. The political scientists I have talked to and read re:BMD have hypothesized for a while that developing and deploying BMD would lead to a new arms race. They got it right, I think.

[dean_acheson]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...rnational/home

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?...32653020070603

[TteFAboB]

Diversionism: use the pretext to re-arm before you become more vulnerable to China. It's alot better than saying: "Hey Wen, you're running out of check. Get off the high horse and don't even think about it unless you want a rain of fire in your palace.".

What do you think?

[Oberon]

Didn't know anything about Putins warning until I caught the headlines of the Times and Telegraph this morning whilst dropping them outside people doors. Read the interview with interest, and it's classic Cold War stuff he's saying, if someone spots something wrong within Russia, he points to a similar thing within the EU or the US and accuses the West of hypocrisy. It's a tried and tested tactic...

I find it interesting that he says he will target missiles on Europe when, to be perfectly honest, I'd be incredibly surprised if they were not targetted on Europe, or have had their targetting systems pointed elsewhere for the past sixty years! Certainly the nukes in the Western silos and mobile launchers, oh, and the Northern Fleet. The Pacific fleet will no doubt have Beijing on their autodial as well as Seattle, San Fran, etc.

The nuclear forces of Russia are probably the forces in the best shape I should imagine, although if current figures are to be believed (and I personally don't believe them), only just over half of their missiles are currently servicable.

I agree with Skybird though, plonking a load of ABM stuff in former WP territory is asking for trouble, I mean, there's supporting former Eastern Bloc countries, and then there's using them to piss off Russia in the guise of defending from Iran. Put the ABM in Greece and Italy, you can stick the radar in South Poland, and maybe another radar in Greece...it should have enough range. Hell, you could even try to work with Russia to put in place this system, instead of just saying "Yeah, I'm gonna stick this system here in your back porch, sorry about the noise and the E-fields."
Admittedly Russia would probably tell you where to go, but at least the offer would have been on the table.

Yes...it does look like a second Cold War is on the table, doesn't it?

Wonder if ebay has any of the old 'Protect and Survive' leaflets on it... :hmm:

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Wonder if ebay has any of the old 'Protect and Survive' leaflets on it... :hmm:

Next best thing.