Slashdot Mirror
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."
Don't question this. Very strong arguments can be made that this might actually be the first thing the current administration has done that can even remotely qualify as a foreign policy achievement.
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations..." -Winston Churchill
The Nobel Peace Prize is a pretty big achievement, you know.
Sounds like a good PR move to me.
"What's that? If Help the West invest time and money into a overly-complex and bureaucratic system that will never work, I can look like I'm cooperating and moving forward? Sounds like a deal to me!"
There doesn't need to be a Cold War, but Russia doesn't exactly want a Western hegemony.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
You need to achieve something to qualify for the status of having made an achievement.
The Nobel is a prize, and that particular Nobel is arbitrarily awarded.
"His name was James Damore."
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?
It is good to see such international cooperation on a global issue. Russia's foreign policy positions seem to contrast with what was accomplished at the summit; I wonder what the sentiment about this settlement is in Russia. The next question is if this network can be expanded beyond NATO. Imagine a network which protected Asia, Oceania, and Africa as well. Whether that is politically possible or not is in question, but I believe with enough time we could see the day. Or everyone could nuke each other with their counter-counter-nuke tech.
> go back to sleep there are no threats - it is so great living in this Utopian world where everyone loves each other :-)
go back to sleep there is no debt - it is so great living in this Utopian world where missing money can be printed without any consequences for people that matter :-)
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.
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...
missing money can be printed
I prefer the term Quantitative Easing, thank you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The only global cooperation here is the willingness for the global military industrial complex to bleed the taxpayer dry. The 'ballistic' missile shield is completely useless against cruise missiles. Now you have stealth cruise missiles, supersonic cruise missiles, long range cruise missiles, their now planning long range hypersonic cruise missles, so really who is kidding who here.
Russia is only willing to play the game for the opportunity to start selling it's technology into Europe, likely that is part of the behind the scenes bargain struck with the western military industrial complex.
Why spend billions on a 'ballistic' missles shield that is completely useless against ground hugging cruise missiles, especially when every country is in the process of shifting technology that way. What is this, some kind of lying bullshit way to squeeze profits out of what is rapidly becoming pointless technology, can't afford social welfare but can afford a broken multi billion dollar missile shield.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Yeah you don't get something like that just for being elected ya'know.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
You do realize that the agreement that was just signed simply ties the current and future European systems (Dutch, German, and Spanish SM-3; German-US-Italian MEADS; French SAMP/T; and US SM-3s in Eastern Europe) to the current and future US sensor network? And you realize that the current network already ties in mobile THAAD batteries, SM-3 equipped AEGIS Cruisers and Destroyers (US and Japanese), and the GBI bases in Alaska and California?
And that the whole thing is in it's simplest form a giant systems integration problem, one similar to what the US has already done?
It apparently can be achieved by promising rather than delivering on those promises. Still think it's a big achievement?
Apple has "Mac vs PC", Microsoft has "Laptop Hunters", Linux has recession
"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.
Or for not being George Bush.
Wow, stop putting alum on your cereal or stop starching your shorts.
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...
I fail to see how it's a foreign policy achievement. I see it more as a "He was against it before he was for it!" .
http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/09/obamas-missile-defense-plan-sm.php
A little over a year after telling Poland "No", and it seems like that people forgot it ever happened. Googling "Obama stops missile shield" on the news search came up with no articles at all.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
The "actual enemy" is the potential "Caliphate" opposite the proposed arc of missile defense.
Mentioning it exists is Trollish thoughtcrime, but strategic planners have a duty beyond PC emotionalism.
There is clearly a need to bring Russia into the NATO sphere of influence in a "good way" useful to Russians. We face a mutual Jihadist enemy and wars that may take a century.
We need Russia, China, and India on the same page to contain Pakistan (especially after it falls to its own Taliban and the tiny minority of officials living on US money are lynched) and Iran.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Russia has a missile shield you dolt.
Always had one.
The missile interceptors around and inside Moscow have been since the 70-es. The first missile defence treaty specified that existing systems are to stay. While USA have barely managed to get theirs working for a couple of months in 1975, the Russians have managed to deploy, improve and maintain theirs ever since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_system
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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.
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."
Obama is an appeaser in the Neville Chamberlain mold.
There's an important distinction: Chamberlain loved his country. Obama loves the world.
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.
Earth to you, it the U.S. that is the biggest occupier and war-monger-for profit on the planet. It is the U.S. who occupies Japan and many other nations we use as bases to project power globally (which neither Russia nor China do)
Obama is an appeaser in the Neville Chamberlain mold.
There's an important distinction: Chamberlain loved his country. Obama loves the world.
Obama has one thing in common with all megalomaniacs: he loves himself. But that's no surprise: it's a requirement for anyone seeking that particular position.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Earth back to you. The U.S. is losing money from fighting these wars, not making it. And we inject a massive amount of money into the local economies wherever we have a base, and happily restrict the military members stationed on the base from leaving their barracks the second the locals want us to. (Source for that last point: I wasn't allowed off base in Spain because some moron fought a local months before I got there.)
You are totally correct. If the Russians actually get any technical access to this missile-defense system, its value drops tremendously.
The President needs to ask himself, what actually changed in 1991? The Russians lost a little territory on the western frontier and some allies in the same area. They were temporarily weakened a bit. As far as I can tell, nothing else actually changed, except the intelligence services replaced the CPSU as the governing instrument.
Except that system is not as rosy as you make it.
The thing used(may still use them) nuclear warheads and one of the layer was a total saturation of the area where the missile is calculated to be in.
This is far from what the USA has been attempting to do with small explosion next to the incoming attack.
We the people of the U.S. are losing money, yes. However, the banking cartel and military-industrial complex, with our lawmakers in their pockets, are not losing money.
Nope, that's our doing. We line the Saudis pockets, because that family is, and has been for generations the friends of our petro-dollar cartel.
The religion of the Saudis is Saudi-ism. They use Islam to manipulate.
what a laughable example. Yet another proof the problem is us.
The Saudis are Sunnis, by the way. The Shiites hate their guts.
Well, it uses fairly low yield warheads and at 20km+ intercept altitude. While not elegant it is a typical russian engineering solution: "Do not force it, use a LARGER hammer".
Do not forget - it was designed for WW3. At a moment when EMP has broken all lose from USA and USSR nuking each other into a glass lake who cares about a couple of extra sub-10K nukes.
Also, the newer interceptors are not nuclear armed and they are also supplemented by S300 at a lower altitude which can also intercept warheads (or at least is rumoured to) at least on par with Aegis and Patriot if not even better.
All in all, compared to what US has got it is probably by up to 10 years ahead.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
That imagined business value is NOTHING compared to the billions we pump to the evil Saudi family, who oppress their citizens including maiming, rape, torture, murder.
And your mentioning that most 9/11 terrorists were Saudis only reinforces my point. We fund the Saudis, who for years funded Al-Qaeda, who were led by CIA agent Bin Laden.
We attacked Saddam, because even though in the past we helped make his reign and gave him his weapons to mass murder, he didn't want to go along with our petro-dollar cartel.
All this proves that nothing of these major world problems has anything to do with Islam per se, but much to do with Western meddling and money.
Right, but due to the ABM treaty (which GWB pulled out of) the US and USSR were only allowed *one* location to be protected by an ABM system. The SU picked Moscow, and the US picked some base in BFE, North Dakota, from what I recall.
Slightly different from a country or continent wide "shield", in that it hardly tips the balance of MAD, even if the system is 100% effective.
Sent from my PDP-11
There are threats, alright. There are threats out there that are destabilizing that region, and the whole world. Primarily, the United States and Israel.
"The systems are advertised as defense against an Iranian attack. But that cannot be the motive. The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the earth -- unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated along with them. The purpose of the US interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a US or Israeli attack on Iran -- that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent. Anti-missile systems are a first-strike weapon, and that is understood on all sides. But that seems to be one of those facts best left in the shadows. "
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20090921(1).htm
wow; How the f**k did you get modded up?
The korean war was started when North Korea invaded South Korea.
Vietnam war was North Vietnam invading South Vietnam.
Iraq war (desert storm I) was caused because Iraq invaded kuwait.
And afghanistan taliban absolutely were supporting and hiding OBL and AQ when we went in there.
Now, W DID invade Iraq and yes, I agree that we should not have (and I believe that W/Cheney should have charges brought against them for Iraq). BUT, all of the ones that you mention shows me that about the only bigot here is you. Calling this Christian is a joke. America is composed of many religions. OTH, AQ/Taliban/etc are composed of exactly one religion.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.