Russia Threatens Pre-emptive, Destructive Force On US Missile Defense 675
suraj.sun sends this quote from an article at the BBC:
"Russia says it is prepared to use 'destructive force pre-emptively' if the U.S. goes ahead with controversial plans for a missile defense system based in Central Europe. The warning came after the Russian defense minister said talks on missile defense were nearing a dead end. Moscow fears that missile interceptors would be a threat to Russia's security. But the U.S. and NATO say they are intended to protect against attacks from Iran or North Korea. 'A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens,' chief of the Russian defense staff Gen Nikolai Makarov said. President Barack Obama ... scrapped plans for a network of bases spread across Poland and the Czech Republic with the capacity to intercept long-range missiles. But in 2010, the U.S. signed an agreement with Poland to use an old airstrip at Redzikowo, near the Baltic coast, as a missile defense base."
Weird (Score:5, Interesting)
This is weird on so many levels.
So - what's really going on here?
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worried the U.S. is about to stumble into WWIII (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it's stumbling like a blind fool - these military ventures are very much in line with the plans of some evil bastards [slashdot.org] who think that because the US (with help of some European allies) is capable of completely taking over the world militarily, it has a moral responsibility to do so. Never mind the millions of people that might get killed in the process.
Re:Weird (Score:1, Interesting)
The geopolitical subtext is a Russian and Iranian strategic partnership that would control natural gas supplies in eastern and central Europe.
A missle shield would interfere with Iranian Nuclear intimidation of Europe, The Mideast and the 'Stans and remove a component of Russian Iranian hegenomy
No it's not. (Score:2, Interesting)
It has nothing to do with the USSR.
Russia has a history of being invaded and the paranoia is deeply embedded in the psyche of her peoples and leaders. They've had a very long history long before the USSR existed.
Secondly, it's about power and her leaders wanting to continue to appear to be a World military power - not only to the rest of the World but also for her peoples.
If Europe and the US were smart, they'd would include Russia in on the defense. After all it is in their interests too to defend against N. Korea and any Middle Eastern threats - even the broken states that they back themselves (Syria). If Europe is attacked, Russia's very lucrative gas and other energy franchises would go down in flames.
Russia should be on board with this. Europe's security is their's also and they need to realize that this isn't the 18th or 19th or even early 20th century. They can be a valuable force in World peace and stability if they (and the US for that matter) would give up this illusionary dichotomy of World power structure.
1962 in reverse (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Worried the U.S. is about to stumble into WWIII (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pot, kettle (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't wait for you to explain me what exactly were strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan about.
Also, would you consider a missile launch silo as an offensive or defensive system?
How can you be stupid is beyond me.
Where did anyone ever say the US was building missile silos? This whole thing is solely over a missile defense network. Those are made up of radar, ABM batteries, and usually a few SAM batteries as well for protection against ground attack fighters. ABM batteries are not built in silos. And since when where Iraq and Afghanistan preemptive strikes against defensive systems? Afghanistan was the equivalent of striking your opponents camp. It was their training ground, their support base, where they went to refit, replan, and retrain. This is also where the initial, provoking attack was planned for and trained for. Afghanistan was a legitimate military target, and the broad support that went into the invasion proved so. The only ones against it were your staunchly anti-war people and, I'm sorry to say, as long as 2 humans are left alive on this planet, there will be war.
Now, Iraq is where it gets a bit tricky. Had Bush been wanting to get Saddam for a while? Yes, that's pretty well documented. Was AQ in Iraq? Not until after we invaded it. Had Saddam used WMDs before? Yes, both on his own civilian populations and against military targets. Were there any WMDs in Iraq? Not that were found. Did he want us to think he had WMDs? Yes. Essentially, he bluffed, we called it. International relations is like poker, the highest stakes game you can imagine. What Russia is doing right now is raising on pocket 2s. They're posturing, nothing more, and trying to get the US to back down.
Re:Pot, kettle (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not a defensive system, not to the Russians anyway. It's true enough that it could be used defensively against Iran and North Korea, but it has an offensive role in an all out war against Russia. It breaks MAD, and while MAD is a ridiculously suicidal way to run a planet, it did manage to get us through the cold war pretty well.
See, here's the thing. The Russians know that even with their aging fleet of ICBMs, they can still overload any conceivable missile defense system. If the US has N interceptors gaurding New York City all Russia has to do is launch N+1 missiles at it (actually considerably less since the interception success rate is going to be much lower in real combat situations). And that ignores all the relatively cheap anti-interception technologies that could be used. So why are they so pissed? Because the US also just happens to also have a fleet of nuclear launch capable submarines, a fleet of stealth bombers, and hundreds of nuclear cruise missiles (which have been mothballed but could be easily brought back into service). A properly designed first strike could hit literally hundreds of targets inside Russia with nuclear weapons with less than 30 minutes warning.
Now, it's kind of hard to coordinate your counter attack when every military base in the country is a glowing glass crater. That's not to say they wouldn't have missiles, they'd have plenty, and the commanders in charge of them would have the authority to launch them, but launch them where? Without the communication and planning, the counter attack is going to be staggered, disorganized, and concentrated. Exactly the situation where a missile defense like the one the US is deploying could be effective against the Russians. The Russians are pissed about it (and about Star Wars in the 80s) because it gives the US a real first strike capability against them.
And yes, right now nuclear war is unlikely. But what about 30 years from now? What about 50? 50 years ago the US and Russia were staring at each other off the coast of Cuba, waiting for the other one to blink to decide who would be blamed for starting nuclear Armageddon. A lot can change in half a century.
Re:The United States wouldn't care (Score:5, Interesting)
I also tend to think that this is really Putin trying to claim to the Russian people that Russia still matters as a military force, i.e., he still wields a big dick. Being an economic force isn't something he knows how to produce and he knows it. All he has to do is show Russia can influence America's strategic behavior to claim he can not only hold his dick, he can wave it as well.
Who needs MAD? Self destruction does the job (Score:4, Interesting)
What I find really scary about nuclear weapons is how little it takes to bring on nuclear winter and world wide famine. Russia could still destroy everyone by nuking themselves. Just 50 nukes could kick up enough dust that crops would not get enough sunshine for at least 7 years. Even Pakistan could have enough nukes to pull that off. Bit difficult to intercept that.
Re:Frak (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia seems to be more concerned that the US would be putting a strategic asset in part of the "near abroad". That implies a certain level of military backing for Poland. Current opinion in some of the more nationalist factions in Russia is that allowing basing of that type (rather than just some ground troops to do training, etc) would limit Russia's ability to project influence in Eastern Europe.
I'm a bit surprised that Russia did this after Obama indicated he would have more manuevering room to negotiate on it after the election. This puts pressure on him in a way that's not likely to lead to him backing down since he's in a campaign. Maybe they see him as vulnerable in some way.
Re:The United States wouldn't care (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that the Russians tried to arrange a deal whereupon Russian observers would be in place on US missile defense bases, to ensure they cannot be used against them. The US refused.
There's plenty of evidence that the Russians are genuine in their belief that this is a threat to them, and this has been a consistent position of theirs since the Cold War.
Re:Frak (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia is our friend. They are not so sure that we are their friend. After the collapse of the Soviet Union we moved in and established "relations" with any number of gangsters and rogue politicians in Russia. And we contributed financially to a number of useful people. We bought strategic resources and we bought politicians.
When one of their rogue oligarchs was in the process of trying to sell the Russian oil industry to some outfit in Dallas, the old hardliners decided we were definitely not their friend. - > the return of Putin and friends.
We also promised that we were not going to make Russia's neighboring countries part of NATO. Then we made all of those neighboring countries part of NATO.
United State Foreign Policy 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
This system went a little fubar in the Middle East because in the 1990s Iraq decided that instead of fighting Iran it would pick on smaller countries, so that it could be the big regional power. Since no one in the region could fight both Iraq and Iran, the United States had to go in itself and try to fix things directly. It didn't work as smoothly as planned, but things seldom do when you resort to war.
Re:The United States wouldn't care (Score:4, Interesting)
What the hell are you talking about??
Russia kicked Georgia's ass not because of some mythical "move towards the Western ideology". Georgia launched an unprovoked large-scale military offensive on South Ossetia. Scores of people died, including civilians and Russian peacekeepers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war [wikipedia.org] . So Russia got involved militarily, kicked the sorry georgian ass out of South Ossetia, and kept kicking it all the way back to georgia's capital Tbilisi. Then it withdrew its forces. Georgia was the aggressor.
Same with Ukraine, it's just local clans fighting for influence, one than the other gaining more power and pushing their people as presidents. It has nothing to do with "evil Moscow hand".
Stop smoking whatever you are smoking and get your facts straight.
Re:Frak (Score:5, Interesting)
Americans don't understand that Russia is intimidated by the United States.
Russians don't understand that the feeling isn't mutual.
Re:Frak (Score:4, Interesting)
'People desperate to take or keep power' don't blow themselves up or shoot at police. Nor do they launch suicidal first strikes... unless you can give examples that show otherwise.
Most every suicide attack in the middle east is about getting and keeping power. When the Taliban straps explosives onto a mentally disabled, drugged young woman, covers her back up with her burka, and sends her into a vegetable market or out in front of a police station to slaughter people, it's entirely about power. About influencing it, projecting it, and destabilizing opposing power. When a young man driving a car full of explosives blows himself up in front of a foreign embassy or hotel, it's about getting and keeping power: he wants his particular slice of culture to be dominant over another slice of culture. To the extent that his slice of culture is informed by medieval-minded religious wackadoo-ness, blowing himself up isn't seen as self-destruction, but as participation in the culture, and as a shortcut to glory and reward. He wants power for him and his cultural niche, and blowing himself up is part of that plan. It's completely irrational, but it's hardly rare, at this point.
Re:Frak (Score:5, Interesting)
Georgia was a NATO ally, and yet the US did nothing to support them when invaded by the Russians (due to our Middle East wars)
U.S. not standing behind Georgia was a perfectly sensible decision. NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance - it's "a strike against one is a strike against all". But in the 2008 war, it was Georgia that attacked first. If NATO intervened on their behalf, it would set a bad precedent - any NATO member would then be that much more willing to initiate force, knowing that, should they run into problems, their allies will shoulder the burden for them.
Re:Frak (Score:3, Interesting)
Once the camel's nose is in the tent, soon the rest of the camel will follow.
If I were to play this game on the US side I would do it step by step. First, reduce the number of warheads and missiles by agreements. Then deploy interceptors near Russia's borders. Then work on whatever assets remain. Submarines can be easily countered by following them and destroying them before you press the big red button. All you need to do is to find them, and there are ways to do so (it's just a technical problem.) If a sub is attacked it will not be able to tell anyone; not from under water, and not quickly enough.
Besides, what other bright idea do you have in mind to keep the USA as the top dog of the world? Having better business climate? Having the lowest prices? Offering the most stable currency? Having the highest employment rate? Having the most educated and peaceful population? Being progressive? Being an exporter of oil and rare minerals? Having the smartest leader?
As it stands, the USA had ran out of the temporary boost that it got after the World War II. Decay set in, and young grasshoppers of Asia are outperforming it. The USA can maintain its position only by military force, or by threats of using it. (Even that is not enough, but they are trying.)