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Russia To Help NATO Build Anti-Missile Network
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Russia has agreed to cooperate with NATO on erecting a US-planned anti-missile network in Europe protecting the continent against possible ballistic missile attacks from Iran or elsewhere. The anti-missile coverage would be anchored by a US land- and sea-based deployment, reconfigured by Obama from earlier plans devised under the Bush administration. The new idea would be to link individual national missile defenses into the US network and place them all under a NATO command and control center with authority to respond to an attack. 'We see Russia as a partner, not an adversary,' says President Obama, hailing the NATO-Russian accord. President Dmitri Medvedev warned that Russia's cooperation must be 'a full-fledged strategic partnership between Russia and NATO' and not just a nod in Moscow's direction to spare Russian feelings while Europe tends to its own defenses in tandem with the United States."
Quite ironic to help against themselves. If there was no actual "enemy" no missile barrier should be needed at all.
Russia just wants to know the implementation details so they can determine the vulnerabilities of the system.
If Russia develops a missile shield, what is to stop them from attacking with impunity? We must act first!
This seems like an extremely expensive Maginot line to me. It seems far more cost effective to develop a concealable weapon to sneak into the country. Or what would stop a nation from firing 1000 dummy missiles and exhausting the defense.
Not At The Office
Needs Americans To Operate
Not After Two O’clock
No Action Talk Only
That response by Russia should have raised suspicions about the Kremlin's actually sabotaging the design of the missile system. After all, if the Kremlin is not committed to using the system, why would the Kremlin bother to ensure that the system can actually work?
Worse, "President" Medvedev has accused the Europeans of using the shield to neutralize Russian nuclear missiles. If the Kremlin were a true supporter of NATO, why would the Russian "president" still present Russia as an adversary of the West?
windows XP ;)
We couldn't blast Europe; we can't find it on a map.
Eventually you'll own the land, thin your own herd, scare Europe into thinking you're the good guy and let you take over. You won't be able to handle all the logistics so you'll need to deputize a huge amount of private corporations to "act" as the gov't. They can do your bidding and take the fall. You just sit back and enjoy. If you're lucky Rupurt Murdock will cut you in for a slice of the Newscorp profits too!
I hope the designers of this system know what they are doing. A very obvious design goal would be to make it so that a computer virus loaded in one country couldn't shut down the ballistic missile defenses of another. After all, if one country writes most of the software they could easily insert back doors to allow them to shut down any node of the system at will.
Heck, this system will uses lots of RF antennas for input (such as the tracking radars)...a good back door could be triggered remotely, so long as you were running the same firmware revision as before. So even if you cut the cables linking the control centers together, one country could still remotely disable the defenses of another.
Why do you quote the word "president"? If that should express your doubt in the legitimacy of his rule, perhaps Medvedev is quite smart to sabotage the NATO anti-missile program. You know, just in case someone in Washington D.C. suddenly agrees with your doubts.
yes, well, that's because you're retarded.
So, all the individual nations' missile defense systems will now be linked into a single network? Have these leaders read the news about 'cyber' warfare and how it's starting to pick up? It would seem that creating an electronic pathway from other nations should raise concern for the security of one's own defenses. Prior to a physical attack, it would be convenient to knock out the missile defenses of your adversary and this network now provides that conduit...
In Soviet Russia, missiles shield YOU.
they spelled China as 'elsewhere'.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
If this will be as useful as the international space station.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"If the Kremlin were a true supporter of NATO, why would the Russian "president" still present Russia as an adversary of the West?"
Precisely, the Kremlin believes that they need a credible foreign threat to keep themselves in power. Truly cooperating with the West would remove that and they'd be left with defending their regime using the same yardsticks as democratic regimes.
Because everybody knows it is really Vladmir Putin who runs Russia, and is Prime Minister to get around the consecutive term limits, and will run again for the Presidency, and win after Medvedev's term is up...
Check his other comments and submissions, he appears to be on a mission.
Will such a missile shield protect Israel from the extremely unlikely event of a missile attack from Iran? Will the missile shield protect Iran from the much more likely event of an attack by Israel?
never
Everybody knows no such thing, but some pretend that they do.
and because they want to know how it works and make sure the US system is connected so when they send a worm down the line, it takes everyone out of the loop. Putin still scares me and seems like he's too much like a James Bond villain than anyone out to do his people any good.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Pakistan will be running on US funds for the foreseeable future and will be no threat to anyone but itself.
Terrorists use bombs, not intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Worse, "President" Medvedev has accused the Europeans of using the shield to neutralize Russian nuclear missiles. If the Kremlin were a true supporter of NATO, why would the Russian "president" still present Russia as an adversary of the West?
Why not? They benefit from having it both ways. By contributing to the system, they gain access to valuable technology. And by being very standoffish about it, they'll be in a position to leverage bribes and other income off of even a basic working missile defense system.
They could like, try to claim that the separatist Chechens have nukes
because the world has a population problem. Somehow, by some evil logic, it makes way more sense to create weapons than to save the poor and starving only to have twice their numbers needing to be saved in 20 years time.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
No worries; our missiles have GPS...
You push button and missile goes correctly. If some missile don't go correctly you shoot more missile.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
There are no missile threats from Iran or any where else, this is military contractors making deals and the rest of the humans being to stupid to care or notice.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You mean Russia doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, but will once we hand over our nuclear missile defense plans. Fucking utopian communists are going to get us all killed.
Earth to Obama. Russia occupies US allies Georgia, Japan, Modova. It aggressively meddles in Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. It proliferates nuclear technology to Iran, Venezuela, and Syria. They arm adversaries of the US all over the planet. They are an enemy of the US by any rational definition. Obama is an appeaser in the Neville Chamberlain mold.
an ill wind that blows no good
wrong, no population problem but we only have resource distribution problem, which would mostly have been solved by investing the trillion or ten trillion we spend on war and war-mongering.
No shortage of energy on this world, nor sufficient land to grow food. No shortage of water that can be turned to fresh water by the simplest application of the abundant energy this world receives.
We have shortage of will to get off petro-dollar cartel and shortage of will to invest in condition of humans that would have wealth-growing benefits to all.
Just bailing out our failed finance/banking cartel took the amount of wealth that could have paved the deserts over with existing solar tech sufficient to power the north and central americas.
Because since they cut the old program Orbital Sciences has had to lay off something like a third of its employees, and the layoffs continue just about every week.
Against whom? You know, us here in Poland think of the missile shield mostly as one against Russia. Regardless how warm are the ties between our countries these years it pays to be paranoid...
A report by an Australian news organization notes, "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed yesterday to involve technicians in development plans, but did not make a commitment if it became operational and warned that Russia might decide against joining the US-led effort if it were not treated as an equal partner." Though Russia is assisting NATO, Russia is not necessarily committing to using the system.
That response by Russia should have raised suspicions about the Kremlin's actually sabotaging the design of the missile system. After all, if the Kremlin is not committed to using the system, why would the Kremlin bother to ensure that the system can actually work?
Worse, "President" Medvedev has accused the Europeans of using the shield to neutralize Russian nuclear missiles. If the Kremlin were a true supporter of NATO, why would the Russian "president" still present Russia as an adversary of the West?
WE MUST NOT ALLOW A MINE-SHAFT GAP!
Seriously - quit fapping to Red Dawn and realize that the Cold War is over.
Check comrade kmike's other comments and submissions, he also appears to be on a mission. ;)
That response by Russia should have raised suspicions about the Kremlin's actually sabotaging the design of the missile system. After all, if the Kremlin is not committed to using the system, why would the Kremlin bother to ensure that the system can actually work?
Obviously Russia would welcome the opportunity to study state of the art western missile defense systems without resorting to the fickle world of spies and informants. What better way to determine the capabilities of the system, and thus its weaknesses, than to assist in the deployment of them? Also, if they know where the systems are, they can neutralize them much more easily.
It should be obvious why Russia is involved. Perhaps there is more to this story, though - what about the possibility that this is a dog and pony show to deceive Russia and lead them on?
I kind of doubt it, though. Our last 3 presidents have given big gifts to our adversaries. Clinton with his million dollar backers in China, who got the miniaturized nuke tech, Bush's gracious gift of a Boeing E-3, and now Obama's gift of nuclear missile defense technology. I think this is all a big game to keep defense spending going. As the adversaries are always in possession of our latest technology, we have to keep throwing money at defense firms to advance the state of the art. Rinse and repeat.
She's this hot blonde in a red dress. Dr. Baltar at NATO will love working with her.
There's an old urban legend - dating back to 90s - that Chechens have "backpack nukes" which they have already smuggled into large Russian citizens and wired up. Presumably when they feel things really are bad, they'll push the red button. So nothing new there.
In practice, given the modus operandi of Russian government in the Chechen wars, a more likely approach would be to give the Islamists nukes for real.
When you have treaty obligations such as freeing your money by 2004 and you do not do so, then you have indicated that you are in a cold war.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you believe the powers that be are happy with the world, you sir, are living in a dream world.
There are countries that want to run the world and there are countries who want the world out of theirs.
Resources define power, when resources run low, the stock pile of power will acquire more, or at least, attempt too.
Want to know who is likely to go crazy and start a war, just look at those countries who want every out of their borders or is running low on resources.
Sure there a threats -- but the US spends more money on threats then the rest of the world combined. Somebody is being taken for a ride -- that would be the US tax-payer.
Surely there is a more cost-effective way to address threats, in the same way that you don't need to build an interstate highway for two or three cars. The US military is gratuitously over-expensive. There is no need to spend so much money.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"everybody knows" is absolutely true. the rest is wrong.
USA USA USA no wait !!
CCCP CCCP CCCP no wait !!
What the fuck is it now ??
oh, right !!
RU RU RU !!
oicu812 !!
Speaking as a European, if we want any security on this world we should start by trowing the USA out of any decision making entity, isolate it and break it up. The USA is not country, it is a mining corporation similar to African locus.
Everybody, meaning you? Yes, the PM does technically run the country, but president is so much powerful... Power in Russia changes hands very slowly. Putin got to his full power as a president only after a few years(reducing the remnants of Yeltsin's era)... Medvedev will acquire that power also, so it looks less and less likely for Putin to make a comeback.
Ignoring that will bring Europe the Darwin Award.
That's not exactly true. Most Westerners don't understand the Russian mindset, but when you understand their history you begin to understand Russia and why they are the way they are. Russia is a harsh environment that has suffered extreme weather which led to awful famines and killed lots of people, so Russians are very pragmatic for this reason.
Also, Russia has been the target of the three largest invasions in the history of the world, The Mongol invasion (they lost), Napolean's invasion with the Grand Armee (they won), and Hitler's invasion with Operation Barbarossa (they won). The two they won used scorched earth tactics, trading land and soldiers for time, and won without any real outside help.
Russian history is full of the deaths of millions of people and invasions by foreign powers with not outside assistance. Their main cities, Kiev, Odessa, Moscow, St Petersburg etc., are close to the Russian borders and are vulnerable to attack (and all have been subject to some of the biggest sieges in history). Based on that history, Russians trust no one unless they feel they can obliterate them, because for them a weak ally not kept under their heel can in short order become a strong opponent with a million troops invading their heartland. They seek to keep all others at bay by 1) controlling satellite states around them to create a geographic buffer (this is why they control Checnya, Georgia, the Caucasus states, and Ukraine), and 2) by having a strong enough military that no one would dare threaten them (this is why the Russians have always maintained at least a 2 to 1 ration of main battle tanks compared to NATO, and why they have enough nuclear weapons to vaporize the planet 5 times over).
The Russians don't need a credible foreign threat to keep them in power. The Russian people still remember very well the famines, the hardships, and people alive today remember the 4 hour lines to get a loaf of bread under the Soviets. The current Russian government provides food for the people and provides at least the illusion of perfect security from outsiders. That's enough for the Russian people.
Resource distribution only short-term, when taking large amounts of energy and land from the past (stored in fossil fuels) or the future (spoiling the surroundings). We are above this 2.1, on average
One that hath name thou can not otter
It's really curious in Poland in this regard - Russia is this old, sleazy entity not to be trusted. Somehow nobody mentions how we're the only ones who held Moscow/Kremlin for a few years. And of course popular understanding of partitions in XIX century omits how, on the Russian part, they were almost a personal union - until hardline feudal separatists frakked things up.
(but it wasn't merely scorched earth in WW2, not close)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Russia is the only place with fully operational nuclear missile defense technology...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Yeah, and he is far from supportive of this deal. Curious how this Russia running ends up...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Us here in Poland think the previous show with missile shield was moronic.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually we have the Patriot missile and the Patriot II which have been operational for almost two decades now. They are designed to target tactical or cruise missiles (whether or not the warhead is nuclear doesn't matter).
What's the name of the Russian system? When was it successfully battle tested?
Well, you can always convince yourself that tactical systems such as Patriots are an equivalent to (briefly deployed) Safeguard Program. Or currently deployed Russian A-135 (and A-35 previously)
One that hath name thou can not otter