[Topgun]

It's like The Sum of All Fears

[TrashMan]

That's pretty idealistic. In reality, you cannot do that without consequences.

Yup, but what consequences?
Threatening a country for installing DEFENSIVE devices, since they reduce your OFFENSIVE potential? It' jsut...wrong (not that it stopped any politicians in history so far)

There's the only saying Offense is the best defense. Nice, but it kinda misses the point that offense is defined differently from defense, ergo, they are not the same. It is therefore flawed.

[IceFire]

Russia's primary defence are missiles. By placing those anti-missile things in Poland, you neutralise Russia's main defence. I don't think you'd want something like that done to your country, right?

That'd be true if the American Interceptor missiles were capable of dealing with the Russian nuclear arsenal.  They aren't and they won't for a long time.  The Russians retain a sophisticated nuclear deployment system with many missiles that are tipped with multiple warheads (MIRVs).   The dozen or so American interceptor missiles could shoot down only a fraction of a full launch.  The Russians are sabre rattling and using the missile shield as a political ball to toss around...its not a legitimate threat to the established nuclear status quo.

[Mars]

So they're threatening to nuke Poland why?

[NGTM-1R]

Russia's primary defence are missiles. By placing those anti-missile things in Poland, you neutralise Russia's main defence. I don't think you'd want something like that done to your country, right?

That's entirely silly.

They want to base five interceptors in Poland, Russia has hundreds of ICBMs still active, mobile and fixed, in addition to her SLBMs which are totally independent of her territory for launching coordinates. While, admittedly, the interceptors based there would be capable of shooting down missiles in their boost phase before they can deploy MIRVs, it's still only five missiles. If Russia was at all serious about using her nuclear weapons there would a launch of at least twenty just to cover a single major country in Europe.

As a practical matter, the interceptors really ought to be welcomed by them as an independent means of defense against the possiblity of one of their guys losing it and making a rogue launch, thereby triggering Armageddon.

However instead they've decided to make some sort of huge political issue of it because...they want to? They're still stuck in viewing Eastern Europe as their turf? They want to keep open the option of using nukes on their southern neighbors on a tactical scale? It's impossible to say.

[blackhole]

Also, has anyone noticed the date for the article was august 17th, when it was posted on the 16th? 

Its an australian news site.

[karajorma]

They want to base five interceptors in Poland

Thin edge. Very big wedge.

At least to the Russian mindset.

[Mika]

Threatening a country for installing DEFENSIVE devices, since they reduce your OFFENSIVE potential? It' jsut...wrong (not that it stopped any politicians in history so far)

Huh? That's what they have always done. Right and wrong do not have anything to do with that. It is also a question of expanding NATO. Though Russians could ask themselves why the countries surrounding mother Russia are so eager to ally with the nations opposing Russia.

At the moment I'm starting to see why Bush has been pushing for Pan-European army. More amazingly, EU seems to trust to Russia in energy questions. Time will show how wise move that one is.

I thought the interceptor missile could destroy ICBMs at the beginning stage of their ballistic trajectory, so that the nuclear heads are still in the same container. Not to mention take down quite an amount of aircrafts. But still, I thought Russia would nuke Poland in any case, so no harm done with the missile shield.

Mika

[BlackDove]

Talk about sensationalist reporting.

Big whoop.

Someone should put some in Greenland, and in every European country, China, Japan, and generally everywhere, so that whoever launches their **** gets their **** shot out of the sky. No missiles, no explosions.

[NGTM-1R]

Thin edge. Very big wedge.

At least to the Russian mindset.

Russia'd still have the SLBMs, so if they were willing to come into the 21st century with the rest of us, they would dispose of their land-based ballistic arsenal like pretty much every western country has. Russia's problem is they've pursued the concept of tactical use of ballistic platforms very far. Quite seriously Russian military doctrine advocates the tactical use of theater missiles with conventional payloads, and has for the last...forty years? More? Their doctrine on the subject is reasonably advanced from a technical standpoint and in and of itself, quite sound; similar to the way the US has employed Tomahawk strikes, but on a wider scale. But regardless, whenever they carry out exercises or engage in actual operations, they do not use this capablity because, since Russia is nuclear-capable, it must be assumed by the likely targets that any ballistic weapon launched has a nuclear tip. Their thinking on the subject is seriously schizophrenic and in all honesty they would do very well to abandon this doctrine and replace it with something based on cruise missiles. (Like the US did the moment they could.)

[Flipside]

Talk about sensationalist reporting.

Big whoop.

Someone should put some in Greenland, and in every European country, China, Japan, and generally everywhere, so that whoever launches their **** gets their **** shot out of the sky. No missiles, no explosions.

Sounds like a plan to me.

[Mars]

I doubt that the system would target US nukes

[Flipside]

Which is why Russia should develop their own defence system, rather than threatening everyone else for having one.

[Uchuujinsan]

iirc Russia signed the ABM treaty? It didnt?

[BlackDove]

Man really, who cares. Let's just get it over with. I'm ready.

[NGTM-1R]

iirc Russia signed the ABM treaty? It didnt?

Russia is the only country in the world with more than a hundred operational ABMs and has been for more than thirty years. They're emplaced as defenses around Moscow.

[Mars]

The US has only just managed to get them to successfully take down missiles in transit... and the Russians have had them for 30 years?

[WeatherOp]

You know, I'm still waiting until someone either drills off a piece of the moon or lassos a smaller asteroid, and throws it into an enemy. You can't get caught if the enemy thinks it was natural.

[phreak]

At least they didn't forget poland.

[NGTM-1R]

The US has only just managed to get them to successfully take down missiles in transit... and the Russians have had them for 30 years?

They're designed for end-stage interception of a ballistic target either by kinetic kill from direct contact (not easy to intercept, but eminently possible because nuclear reentry vehicles are about as tough as styrofoam) or small-yield nuclear airburst (very easy both ways), the latter being the most likely method, although by the terms of the arms control treaties from the '80s, none of the ABMs should currently be carrying nuclear warheads. (But see the Kursk for Russian compliance to the letter or the spirit of said treaties.)

The US has had the technology to develop a similar system for at least as long, but was prohibited by treaty from doing so. Shooting down a missile in the boost phase is child's play even by 1950's technology, and the reason it took the US so long to develop this one is because it's essentially the same thing as trying to shoot down a low-earth-orbit satellite to hit a missile in the mid-phase of ballistic transit. The problem of interception is not so difficult as the problem of actually reaching the thing.