Putin Threatens US Missile Bases In Europe 997
Melugo writes to let us know that Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against Europe. This reader notes: "It feels like the Cold War all over again." "'If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe,' Putin said... 'It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles.'"
Re:This is just Putin playing politics (Score:3, Informative)
Share your math, because I don't see how. Placing a missile base in Poland, with, if the publicity is to be believed (and there are more unsuccessful tests than successful ones) the capability to shoot down incoming missiles two minutes after detection means that unless Russia is going to put missiles right on its border with Europe rather than their current locations then it is more than capable of intercepting missiles inbound from the Urals.
And of course why would you be protecting against Iran when (right now) the Shabab 4/5/6 missiles are theoretical? If anything the major threat to the US is (still) North Korea.
Re:Yes and No (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As a russian expatriate (Score:2, Informative)
Note i'm talking theory here and not making any argument about weather this really applies to the current situation. After all, the US claims the shield is against single rogue missiles not huge swarms like Russia commands. But my honest opinion is that all of this are political, economic and strategic games and what the public gets to see and read is just the very tip of the iceberg, making the judgment of a meaning and intent behind a leaders statement a very tricky thing at best.
Fuck the missile defence.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This is just Putin playing politics (Score:4, Informative)
The point for the US is that the missile shield does not protect the *US* from Russian missiles. And that point is correct. Russian missiles launched at the US travel north over the polar icecap, not across Europe. You don't take down a ballistic missile by launching a non-ballistic missile directly behind it. It won't be able to outrun the ballistic missile. Preferably you take it out by launching a missile at a right angle to it when it is launched or it is re-entering the atmosphere. The missile bases in Europe are useful for this purpose.
And of course why would you be protecting against Iran when (right now) the Shabab 4/5/6 missiles are theoretical? If anything the major threat to the US is (still) North Korea.
The US has moved significant anti-missile resources to Japan, including several AEGIS cruisers and Army PAC-3 systems. You need to pay more attention to the news.
best missile defense system (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As a russian expatriate (Score:1, Informative)
Put down your crack pipe and your beer bong and start researching topics before making reckless assumptions, okay?
Do Not Ignore Threats of Nuclear Annihilation! (Score:5, Informative)
One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.
We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians [nytimes.com] violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.
The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. Now, Putin is idly threatening to point his nuclear missiles at Eastern Europe. Nuclear annihilation is serious business. Before Russia joined the G-8, no member of the G-7 ever threatened nuclear annihilation against a prosperous, Western democracy.
The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".
Re:All this shit lately about US vs Russia... (Score:1, Informative)
A reminder (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vdzyqQIEAI [youtube.com]
Also, look up "The War Game", and "Threads".
And as usual, with this current posturing, Europe gets it in the shorts _again_. Nuclear war between US and Russia? Europe gets carpet bombed.
Bloomberg: Why is Russia in the G-8? (Score:5, Informative)
When the Kremlin threatens nuclear annihilation against Eastern Europe, the very least that we can do is to expel Russia from the G-8. Expulsion from the G-8 does not terminate relations between Russia and the West. Those relations shall continue. However, expulsion does send a strong, symbolic message that we Westerners condemn the authoritarian impulses of the Russian government.
Re:you are forgetting where the US is... (Score:4, Informative)
Between WWII and Berlin Wall fall, Poland was basically "occupied enemy country" just like DDR. It is not a coincidence that it was Poland who broke Soviet block in Cold War. US provided the support and services, but Poland put the neck on the line.
(Sometimes I wonder if destruction of opportunistic, sitting-on-its-hands, have-done-nothing-for-our-cause Yugoslavia was timed so that heroic Poland would get the reward of Western investments that would otherwise had gone down south where they could had yielded higher profits faster at that time? There are some remote indications that Yugoslav tragedy wasn't quite spontaneous inside self-combustion, but time will tell, once when it won't matter anymore or would conveniently be rationalized retroactively. Anyhow, most of the Yugoslav shards are still grateful - it seemed they could end up much worse, so the damage, drop and setback they experienced are acceptable - and although the one that got outcast and played villain in the show is now pushed toward Russia, it is almost completely neutralized, kept in check, strategically worthless, doesn't stand a chance in a conflict and makes Russia's rep even more bad. It is obviously a bait on a bear trap, although the mechanism of the trap is not yet apparent. But I digress...)
Therefore, I am not quite sure if "former puppet state" sticker on Poland can hold... perhaps "former hostage state" would be more appropriate one.
Re:you are forgetting where the US is... (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1784742.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1964253.stm [bbc.co.uk]
So, Russia did some real steps for disarmament. And got US military bases in Europe as a result.
Re:This is just Putin playing politics (Score:2, Informative)
The Soviet system was already responsible for the horrifying poverty of the Russian people. Exposure to free-market influences simply made it impossible to ignore.
Re:you are forgetting where the US is... (Score:3, Informative)
In case of Iran, suspected NPT violation. In case of North Korea, I believe they left the NPT, in which case its no loner a violation.
They made a promise and went back on it, or look very close to doing so.
In other words, we don't know, but we THINK Iran might be violating the NPT.
It would be similar to argue that while we don't know, we think you are planning some terrorist attack since well, you had this sudden interest in Islam and also started to learn Arab.. we don't have any proof, but just in case we'll lock you up.
Thinking something is nice, but by far not good enough for taking action in most cases.
(Yes, the US also are violating the NPT as well, but that's a separate conversation).
As a matter of fact, no, it is not a seperate discussion.
Nuclear ambitions of Iran are directly related to:
1. Israel's nuclear capabilities
2. Never ending interference in the ME by the USA.
Since 1. is a consequence of the USA and others having violated the NPT, you can't say that it is a seperate discussion.
Also, not keeping to a treaty yourself and then screaming about violations from others makes you laughable at best, and not someone whoms opinion is regarded highly. This has more then a little bit to do with how succesfull the USA is in trying to get others to keep to the NPT.
Being at fault yourself doesn't invalidate your message, but it does invalidate you as a speaker.
If you're a russian expatriate, get THIS (Score:5, Informative)
What stopped them was when the USSR finally got their own nukes and you couldn't bomb them without getting bombed right back.
Just to put things into perspective: The USSR had until that point behaved like a pretty loyal ally. Sure, they had some different ideas about the economy, and securing their own sphere of influence, but by and large they were still grateful for the help in WW2. They stopped when they were told to stop, and stuff like that.
E.g., the reason why today there is a North Korea and a South Korea is because the USSR got asked by the allies to declare war on Japan after it's done with Germany. The USSR had little to gain there, but it honoured its treaty obligations. So it did take Manchuria from Japanese (dealing quite a bit of economic damage to Japan), and handed it over to China. And then proceeded to take Korea from Japan too. So the USA got a bit scared and asked Stalin to stop at the 38'th parallel. Noone actually expected that Stalin would actually stop at the 38'th parallel, but again, the guy actually did what his allies wanted, and actually stopped there.
E.g., a little known fact is that on 10 March 1952, Stalin actually proposed to let Germany reunite, if the result stays neutral (i.e., doesn't join either block.) It was the western powers that refused that.
Stalin was a bad guy, but in regards to the western powers he was _not_ at the moment the enemy. The USSR was in fact still by and large an ally of the USA, a member of the alliance that had just won WW2.
Even the later degrading into Cold War was slightly more a result of USA brinkmanship games than of USSR's doing any evil. The western capitalist world had gotten its panties in a knot at the idea of communism and became obsessed with opposing and thwarting the USSR at every step. The USSR was treated as the enemy, complete with violating their airspace daily, which helped deteriorate diplomatic relations very very fast.
I'm not saying that to defend Stalin or communism, I'm saying it to put it into perspective who did those guys want to nuke: an _ally_.
Without the USSR developping a counter-threat quickly, chances are you wouldn't even be here to brag about being a russian expatriate. Unless you immigrated some time in the 50's, you or your parents might well now be casualties in a statistic, because someone preemptively nuked Russia wholesale.
A missile shield turns all that right on its head. If the USA had a shield back then, it would have nuked Russia by now. The moment one side is immune to retaliation, it can threaten the other side with impunity, or even make good on those threats.
At any rate, maybe that little historical detail is why Putin is now getting his own underwear in a knot.
Re:This is just Putin playing politics (Score:3, Informative)
Why do you think so many Russians look back on the USSR with nostalgia? It's not just the power, many were actually better off.
It's almost like the free market isn't a panacea, like maybe there is a role for a government to manage things. Nah, that can't be it.
Re:I have a better idea (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Official "In Soviet Russia..." thread (Score:5, Informative)
The Russian argument is that, although the US might claim that the defences are intended solely for use against Iranian missiles, they could have a role against Russia's own missiles which would destabilise the existing balance of power.
That's a more logical argument to make against placing defenses in Alaska or the Canadian North. Interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe won't be very effective against missiles launched over the pole and aimed at North America.
you should at least try to consider the situation from their point of view
That's fair. But they should consider the situation from our point of view. For better or worse Americans remember the Iranian hostage crisis. The first thought of many Americans when they think of Islam is of people willing to strap on explosives and kill themselves if they can take a few Westerners out with them. Combine all of that with the memory of 9/11 and the fact that the leader of Iran has called for the destruction of Israel (a nation that for better or worse is typically highly regarded in the United States) and denies the Holocaust and you can start to understand how Americans feel about the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
I'm not saying that any of those feelings are justified or legitimate. I for one realize that Iran had no connection to 9/11 and that most Iranians are moderate and decent people. I for one realize that we've given the Iranian people lots of justifiable reasons for hating our guts at worst and for being wary of us at best. But that still doesn't change the fact that on some level they scare the hell out of me. Given that fact I will support any defensive efforts my Government makes to negate any Iranian missile threat aimed at the United States. And while I do not like a lot of things about Israel I would want to see us defend them against Iranian aggression.
Hopefully it won't come to any of that. Bush will be gone soon -- hopefully to be replaced by somebody more reasonable and versed in the language of diplomacy and a foreign policy based more on realism then on ideology. With any luck maybe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be gone soon too.
Re:you are forgetting where the US is... (Score:4, Informative)
They removed the missiles in Cuba because the US also agreed to remove the Jupiters in Turkey. [wikipedia.org]
Russia's powerplay... sans sense. (Score:2, Informative)
This is just Geopolitics 105 "acting like a baby to get cool shit". Russia acts like an asshole about this until someone agrees to give them the missile defense system and then they act like they didn't do anything wrong. This is just standard politics. The fact that Putin is acting like the US is a "bad guy" because they figured out how to create a missile defense system just makes me sick. The other insinuation that the US is forcing a global arms race is just silly. If anything we still need disarmament and the defensive weapons is a step in the right direction. To me it sounds like Russia is looking for a reason to reacquire the former soviet republic's lands and is thinking this is it.
The threat that isn't getting enough attention is the fact that Iran is talking similarly about Israeli (claiming in pseudo vague terms that Israeli is going to be destroyed, then claiming they meant they will be disappear and it was a mistranslation). But that's a discussion for another time.