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Russia Threatens Pre-emptive, Destructive Force On US Missile Defense
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."
There goes the planet.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Between all the arrogant saber-rattling over Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, and China, you would think the U.S. not only thinks it can go it alone on everything, but may just stumble like a blind fool right into a world war.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Please let it happen before the end of 2012, otherwise all those Mayan calculations that the world will end in this year will go to waste... :p
Not sure what we'd do without it....
Do you have ESP?
This is weird on so many levels.
So - what's really going on here?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
They call it a threat because it neutralizes the "Mutually Assured Destruction" balance that has thus far prevented thermonuclear war from being a viable option. If they can't shoot missiles at us, but we can shoot missiles at them, then there's nothing preventing us from just nuking them out of existence next time we have a disagreement.
The cold war is still pretty fresh in some people's minds...
Signed,
An American
It's about time a major power steps up. It had to take Russia to do it. Shame on your Europe.
My understanding is that the missile system IS for our defense. The idea is to place the defenses closer to the origin of the missiles, so they have more time to react and can destroy them further from populated areas. (like over the Atlantic maybe?)
It also opens up options like using fast, guided micro-missiles that tail their target for an easy hit at low relative speeds, instead of something that has to be pinpoint precise and catch the target head-on at high relative speeds.
Dear fucking idiot: The defense shield has always been to defend North America, not Europe. Have you not read the news at any point in the last 5 yrs? And if not, why comment on something you don't know about?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I remember reading an insightful remark, years ago, on CNN.com from some high-ranking DoD official. He said the Cold War was World War 3. He went on to say the fight against Islamic extremism is World War 4, which is more questionable (the scope and scale of the conflict is much less than any other World War).
So the U.S. has already stumbled into World Wars III and IV, and is now going for WWV! I guess WWII turned out so well for us, our leaders are eager to repeat the experience.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
... or is Putin getting crazier as he gets older? Is he heading down the mad old dictator route of many past soviet general secretaries?
Perhaps the west should carry out a pre-emptive strike on all those russian arms shipments to various unpleasent regimes around the planet (yes I know the west is hardly squeeky clean in that regard too but the russians well sell to pretty much anyone with a big enough wallet).
Yeah, it is just you.
If you think what US is doing is ok, then noone can help you.
The other meanings of "MAD" are not lost on anybody; but it isn't really a new concept.
Theory goes that, in the presence of multiple nuclear powers with overwhelming destructive capability, only the ability to launch a second-strike of sufficient magnitude to dissuade anybody from launching a first-strike against you is a viable defense.
If one party obtains an actually functional anti-missile system, they neutralize everybody else's second-strike capacity, and thus enjoy the ability to launch first-strikes at their pleasure.
Unfortunately, most of this stuff was hammered out under the cold war logic of an environment with ~2 main actors, both presumed to be rationally self-interested, with easy attribution of nuclear strikes, and other favorable conditions. It doesn't work nearly as nicely if you go to N actors, introduce actors who are either irrational or interested in various apocalypses, or dream up delivery mechanisms that make attribution hard...
(The cynics might also argue that both the US and Russia aren't entirely uninterested in playing at cold war, since they both have decades of experience with it, a glut of high-level policy types who were trained under the assumption that that would be their job, and both have discovered that 'dialog with North Korea' and 'Fundamentalist Sandbox Meatgrinder' are lousy games. Plus, the cold war was probably the historical high water mark for buying awesome toys from defense contractors without actually having to learn their weaknesses the hard way all that often...)
They must know more than everyone else.
Let's see how the US likes pre-emptive strikes against its stuff.
Signed,
The world
A "pre-emptive strike" against a defensive system is not justified. The Russians should also consider that any "pre-emtpive strike" will result in retaliation and weigh that before deciding. If the Russians are willing to go to war against the US over and defensive installation that we have offered them unfettered access to, then they really just want war anyway.
Signed,
An American Soldier
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
They call it a threat because it neutralizes the "Mutually Assured Destruction" balance that has thus far prevented thermonuclear war from being a viable option. If they can't shoot missiles at us, but we can shoot missiles at them, then there's nothing preventing us from just nuking them out of existence next time we have a disagreement.
The cold war is still pretty fresh in some people's minds...
See, that's the problem. Russian missiles are set to travel over the North Pole, not over Europe. This system would only defend against missiles targeting Europe, and even then its debatable. Of course, let's not even start on submarine and mobile launchers.
This system is no threat to Russia or MAD.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
My understanding is that the missile system IS for our defense. The idea is to place the defenses closer to the origin of the missiles, so they have more time to react and can destroy them further from populated areas. (like over the Atlantic maybe?)
It also opens up options like using fast, guided micro-missiles that tail their target for an easy hit at low relative speeds, instead of something that has to be pinpoint precise and catch the target head-on at high relative speeds.
Why not adapt a missle defense system to our current fleet of submarines...or if not feasible, create a new class of submarines to meet the requirements. As long as we aren't using kinetic energy weapons or lasers, it should be do-able.
A "pre-emptive strike" against a defensive system is not justified. The Russians should also consider that any "pre-emtpive strike" will result in retaliation and weigh that before deciding. If the Russians are willing to go to war against the US over and defensive installation that we have offered them unfettered access to, then they really just want war anyway.
Signed,
An American Soldier
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.
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.
Europe just acts like they are grown up and can create a liberal organization, then they have the US fight for them, so the US takes all the heat they get all the benefits.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This is kind of like the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
If missile defense is truly to protect against rogue states, why not ask Russia to cooperate on a join defense system that can protect the US, NATO alliance nations and Russia? It seems that bilateral cooperation would go a long way toward easing fears that we're trying to weaken Russia's position, and I would imagine such an extensive missile defense network would make rogue ballistic launches significantly less threatening on the international stage.
Cooperation was actually proposed by the Russians. IIRC, the Russians wanted to have their finger on a "kill" switch for the system. There is also concern about sharing sensitive military technology with them.
What, in your opinion, are we doing wrong? Putting BMD in a foreign country, a country that's signed off on this, and WANTS us to put the interceptors there? Protecting the whole of Europe from an attack by way of Iran? Oh, and paying for it, too! Yeah, I guess we're the assholes.
No, they know Americans believe this thing actually works.
Remember, MAD only keeps countries from starting a war if they all know about it. If US leaders convince itself they can attack Russia or China safely, eventually US will attack Russia or China. To be honest, I am surprised how religious nuts in Bush administration didn't start a nuclear war -- they believed, God protects the US.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Here's what they know: The US (specifically, that well-known liberal peacenik Richard Nixon) signed a treaty in 1972 specifically saying that nobody was allowed to do anti-ballistic missile defense, specifically so that there would always be a MAD scenario if somebody decided to strike. Then George W Bush basically told the Russians to go to hell and that the US was ignoring the treaty. Then they spent a lot of time and money trying to improve their anti-ballistic missile defense. Now Barack Obama is deploying anti-ballistic missile defense right near Russia's border.
Another way of thinking about it: Would you be fine with $EVIL_EMPIRE deploying missile defense in Cuba, Mexico, and Canada?
I get the joke, but the fact that the US is deploying it suggests that they think they have something useful.
I am officially gone from
This is a repost of the beginnings of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Just with Poland and the Czech Republic instead of Turkey.
I think I'd be OK if Russia put a defensive missile installation in Cuba. The key word here is DEFENSIVE.
All well and good but I don't even trust my country's government to be truthful so if another country's goverment uses the word DEFENSIVE I'm not going to believe it for a nanosecond.
There is no difference between offensive and defensive weapons in the nuclear age. Ideologues quickly forget that balance is what kept us all from getting nuked for 30 years. Anything that moves that balance is a threat with the offensive capability. Given how trigger-happy the US has become I can certainly understand the traditional enemy's belligerence in the face of an increase in "defense" systems deployed near their borders.
Are they threatening to shoot missiles at our missile defense? Really? I almost want to see how well that goes for them. How many missiles will they go through before they figure it out?
Additionally, I am quite surprised, no shocked really, that Russia would have so little respect for the sovereignty of Poland! Given the long history of these two countries relationship and past cooperation I, um, oh yeah, nevermind...
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.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
What about their subs? Their subs are ancient compared to the what the US possesses.
So? So long as the Uranium arrives safely at its destination than it doesn't matter how old their subs are.
No sig today...
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.
.. defensive installation that we have offered them unfettered access to ..
Signed, An American Soldier
You are only presenting selected parts of the picture there, Soldier:
a) A missile array is a missile array: with todays modular technologies "defensive" can become "area denial" or "offensive" in a matter of minutes; if you are saying otherwise (i.e. that the array "poses no threat") bear in mind that you are not trying to convince the evening news audience, but experienced war generals that command the world's largest arsenal;
b) how about the Russians offering you "unfettered access" to a similar system in Cuba, established there to protect their interests (perhaps Russian businesses in the US) from potential radical central and south american rogue elements;
c) I am no pronounced military strategist, but opening many fronts (as the US is doing in the present era) comes with benefits as well as costs: there is NO WAY today's superpowers can tackle conflicts like the ones the US is maintaining, and at the SAME time take on skirmishes with another superpower: the Russians are well aware of this, and they know that they absolutely can vaporize the array and get away with it- and they are letting you know that they will do it. Remember that China is also a superpower, and good luck getting them on the table and heaving them your way while engaged in tens of other conflicts, especially in a decade or so when their orbital, ICBM, naval and electronic warfare capabilities will be much more enhanced in comparison with the present day.
d) as a soldier, I am sure you know that the one who strikes first, strikes many times and keeps on striking, get's to win. This array is just too close, its implementation is seen as an act of aggression, and you and I or anybody else might claim otherwise but that is of no consequence: the truth is that the Russians see it as a threat, and they are issuing a warning that if built, they are going to blow it into pieces. Not you, not your cities, not your country: only a base such as this one.
Bottomline, you can't have the cake and eat it. So go on, be my guest, spend billions of dollars and thousands of manhours to see it all vaporized in a jiffy, ignite global tensions, destroy families and sacrifise young soldier's lives (I don't expect the array to be unmanned when it gets hit) to back up a bunch of retarded arguments.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Yeah... North Korea? I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to fire your missiles so they pass over Poland first, okay? That'd be great....
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
There would be absolutely no strategic value to a Russian missile defense system in Cuba and Venezuela, not unless the United States wanted to launch a couple primitive SCUD-like missiles at those countries. What the Russians don't want is an American military presence in Central Europe. They want Poland to be in their sphere of influence like in the good old days, and they see this as a move into their territory. They themselves know that a missile defense system will be no threat to their defensive or offensive capabilities.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Russian missiles are set to travel over the North Pole, not over Europe. This system would only defend against missiles targeting Europe,
Europe is where the U.S. keeps most of its first strike nukes. Protecting those with a missile defense system leaves Russia at a huge disadvantage in any nuke war--and seriously upsets the Mutually-Assured-Destruction balance of power.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
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.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
As has been stated, this system is worthless against a Russian attack on the US. For starters, the shortest distance from Russia to the US is over the Arctic. This is the path the missiles would take and this system is worthless against missiles following a northern trajectory.
Next, you mention America's submarine and bomber force. You do realize that Russians have those too, right? While they do not have stealth bombers, their bomber force is more than adequate and their submarine force is either second to the US only or second to none.
This system is no threat to MAD.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
There are lots of potential reasons for their actions on both sides of the equation: Maybe the US really does want to protect against attacks, or maybe they want to continue their march to becoming the world government. Maybe Russia feels it won't be needed anymore by its allies if the Americans are protecting them instead. etc... I've no idea.
The United States Foreign policy is easy to understand. It can be summed up in one sentence: Prevent any regional power from becoming a global power. That's it. The way it does this is by supporting small countries that are under the threat of being sucked into the spheres of influence of regional powers. Hence Pakistan vs India, Iraq vs Iran, Japan and Taiwan and the Philippines vs China, the former Soviet Republics and Central Europe vs Russia.
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.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Oh cool, we are getting our old, trusted, loved boogieman back! Just in time for the Terrist Mooslim to be retired as the archetype bad guy. The Powers That Be must have realized it was safer working with Russia to keep the citizens in fear. The Taliban approach was cheaper, but was much harder to manage. Russia will cost more, but is more predictable.
So hopefully we'll start getting some good old school Megadeth songs again! (Although the last one was pretty good...)
Russia is a pretty cool guy. He stands up to the U.S. and doesn't afraid of anyone.
For almost 50 years we lived under threat of instant vaporization. Both NATO and Soviets assumed that opponent army reinforcements will be stopped at Vistula line by tactical nuclear strike. Revealed war plans assumed that two million Poles will die in such strike and most parts of central Poland will become useless, radioactive wasteland for a number of years. Here in Poland we were trained how to survive nearby nuclear strike on a regular basis.
Things changed in 1990, when Cold War was finally over. Everyone became a friend. Some we liked some more [Americans] than others [Russians] for obvious reasons but it didn't really matter much.
Now, after 20 years of relative safety some psychotic US leader came here and started messing around with their 'anti-missile' shit. Arms race is back. Let assume that they'll install a system that will intercept 50% of russian missiles. Rational response I would expect from Russian is to have, say, twice as many nuclear tipped missiles they have now. I know this, Russians know this. Psychotic US politicians know this as well. So we have to live once again under threat of (instant) vaporization just because some dysfunctional psychopaths who happen to have too much power in their hands decided to pursue their geopolitical games. Having seen how these games have played out in, say, Middle East I'm really scared. Various "developments" since 2001 made me confident that United States will spark 3-rd world war sooner or later. I was hoping that in all the mess between US, Russia, China and Middle East - Poland will become a kind of place everyone forgot about, so we'll be relatively safe. Now I'm losing that hope - some whilte collar fucks along with our local puppet government placed us back into spotlight.
My message to US politicians and millitary: get the fuck out of here NOW. Take your anti-ballistic toys with you and shove them deep into your ass. You killed millions of people in the Middle East, destroyed so many countries. We don't want you to pursue the same psychotic games in Poland.
Regards,
Citizen od Poland.
A trade union... Look it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Polish_trade_union)