This is a noteworthy story but what exactly are they going to do to us using "military-technical methods"? This was never up to them anyway if I am not mistaken. But what would they do? Bomb it?

What we should really be worried about them siding with Iran and helping to start world war 3. That would be extremely bad..

-ChriS

Originally posted by camain
You know, it kinda makes me wonder, why put the missle defense shield in czech republic, when we could put it in Iraq? That would allow for the best defense against Iran. Additionally, How about putting it in Greece and Turkey, vs former Russian Controlled areas. That would protect against Syria. It would protect Europe anyway from those threats. I honestly believe this missle shield isn't for the U.S. its for Europe so that they have a deterrent against Russia which is growing by leaps and bounds Economically, as well as Industrially. Thats one of the reasons why they haven't asked them to join the EU, or NATO. They don't want them to run ruff shod over the rest of the countries.

Just my opinion,

Cheers,

Camain

Because a more stable U.S. aligned country is more trustworthy. You don't want some turncoat in Iraq flipping the switch off to get back at the u.s. when Iran fires a missile at israel... the czech republic is hostile with russia, remember all those terrorist attacks a few years ago at russia from there.

russia is upset because we could effectively leave them open to attack, and defenseless, at least that's how they are seeing it.

sat defense, and sat nukes would raise the same alarm.

it's basically regans star wars initative only land based, the concept is the same the logistics changed.

-missile shield-

Originally posted by BlasteR
This is a noteworthy story but what exactly are they going to do to us using "military-technical methods"? This was never up to them anyway if I am not mistaken. But what would they do? Bomb it?

What we should really be worried about them siding with Iran and helping to start world war 3. That would be extremely bad..

-ChriS

no not bomb it, they mean electronic countermeasures, such as a jamming station across border.

they would want to render it inoperable/ineffective.

using a nuclear detonation over land isn't an option, thats not the strategic option for this type of defensive measure.

they could conventionally shell it but that would escalate the situation to the wrong direction...

by the way does anyone know what defcon level we are at currently?

it's got to be defcon 3 or 2...

Originally posted by greysave

Originally posted by Wotan


If you think this so-called missile shield is for Europe then you are very much mistaken ...... It is for the US and no-one else. It may be being 'sold' to Europe as a European Defence, but dont kid yourself.

Russia is no more a threat to Europe than Australia is to New Zealand. Russia and Europe have too much money tied up in each others economies to let military ambitions come between them.

A missile shield along the Southern Borders of Europe is a much better idea and far more practical - a ring from Portugal along the northern part of the Meditteranean Coast down to the Turkish/Iraq/Afghanistan Border.

How short your memory is of the Russian army forefully taking control of Eastern Europe. If you didn't notice, most countries in Eastern Europe that broke away from the USSR do not want to have anything to do with Russia. It wasn't too polite for those Russian tanks to take over the whole warsaw pact. To say Russia no threat to europe, is not only mistaken, but plain old foolish.

I suggest you look at the opinion polls of the people who live in Poland and the Czech Republic - They dont want your shields either.

And I am not that old ..... They were taken over long before I was born.

Like I said and I still stick to it .... Russia is not a threat to Europe. These shields are not for Europe, they are for the USA - read your own countries blurb about about it.

It is true, that much of this is Russian foot-thumbing and that the real threat to the balance of power is the possible future expansion of the shield, not the first version. But it's pretty obious that the missile shield, if once built, will not be scaled back to comply with treaties of the olden days. It would either grow all the more sophisticated or it would fail. Both are possibilities, but obiously Russia doesn't want to take the chance it would actually work and some day threaten their nuclear deterrent.

But if there is a nuclear war, we pretty much all die, or hope that we would have died. I mean, I can't blame you not having as grim a view of it as I have. Both the US and Soviet goverments spent much of the cold war trying hard to keep their people believing that they could survive a war - and actually win it somehow. My goverment didn't.

Originally posted by Toveri
It is true, that much of this is Russian foot-thumbing and that the real threat to the balance of power is the possible future expansion of the shield, not the first version.

I am confident that by the time the US deploys such defenses , and get it working, Russia will just start MIRVing the Topol-M's or building more ICBM's i n general.

But it's pretty obious that the missile shield, if once built, will not be scaled back to comply with treaties of the olden days.

Treaties neither side respected when they could find a way to disregard them. ..

It would either grow all the more sophisticated or it would fail. Both are possibilities, but obiously Russia doesn't want to take the chance it would actually work and some day threaten their nuclear deterrent.

It can't and it won't especially because Russian ICBM's are aimed at North-American, not Europe. For that they have hundreds of long and short range bombers with stand off missiles that can reach anywhere in Europe at relatively low altitudes.

But if there is a nuclear war, we pretty much all die, or hope that we would have died.

I'm sorry to have to disappoint you but the large majority of the world's population would have survived including , very probably, 80-90% of the Russian population; wish i could say the same for the American population but since their government did very little to protect them against nuclear attack the majority may well have died or slowly starved to death.

I mean, I can't blame you not having as grim a view of it as I have. Both the US and Soviet goverments spent much of the cold war trying hard to keep their people believing that they could survive a war - and actually win it somehow.

Maybe if you went back and looked at the propaganda ( MAD) you would be able to arrive the conclusion that the US government did it's best to convince the American people that no one could win and that everyone might die? Did the ever mention the fact that the USSR spend hundreds of billions of dollars in the effort to build shelters for the large majority of their urban populations while deploying thousand of dual use SAM/ABM missiles to protect cities?

Stellar

Maybe if you went back and looked at the propaganda ( MAD) you would be able to arrive the conclusion that the US government did it's best to convince the American people that no one could win and that everyone might die? Did the ever mention the fact that the USSR spend hundreds of billions of dollars in the effort to build shelters for the large majority of their urban populations while deploying thousand of dual use SAM/ABM missiles to protect cities?

I wouldn't put much hope even if there are shelters. The first problem is the short warning time in the event of an attack, for example the time between a confirmation of Soviet attack and the first impact in the UK was estimated to be 4 minutes. To evacuate large number of people into the shelters that would be a very short time.

The bigger problems would come after the war itself. Cities would be in ruins, most likely still burning. There would be a lot of radiation in the fallout and lot of where they would not have burned, dead bodies. Pure water would be hard to find, except deep underground but getting it up would be difficult. This would mean a lot of epidemics among the survivors.

If they could survive that, then eventually emergency reserves (assuming they could even be effectively distributed in the chaos of the aftermath) would run out and people would start to starve - contributing to a even more serious health crises with malnutrition and the consumption of radioactive goods.

It would be consievable, that in additiont o military targets and cities also the aggricultural infrastructure would be attacked. In the least there would be problems with fallout. Actually, Soviet Union of the 80's might have been a lot better off in this than they (or we) are now. It would have been a more aggrarian culture and much more people could have achieved self-sufficience. The loss of 10% of the largest farms today would devastate the food production - not to mention that goods are transported longer, meaning the collapse of infrastructure would make the distribution of food very difficult.

In all this, EMP effects would also pose a major problems. Most farming equipment these days would propably be dead after the war, with the electronics fried by EMP. Same would go for trucks, trains and planes. The army reserves that would not have been destroyed would be pretty insignificant in the national scale.

So, even though it would depend on the madness of the people who have planned the attack patterns whole humanity might not die, but most would, along with the world we know. Also the life expectancy for any survivor would be very low and amount of birth-defects very large.

I would also believe it to be possible, that in the event of a full-out nuclear war (would there be another kind?) there might be the danger of "doomsday" attacks - ie. attacks that are meant to maximise the radioactive fallout.

Being Russian and having grown up in the US i can say that Russians not "hate" Americans. They dislike them because Bush is constantly trying to undermine Russia by building his missile shields, and making war on allies. Why built i missile shield in Europe? Why not put it off the coast of the US? The old saying " the best offense is also the best defense" can be reversed. the Bush administration doesn't like Russia because just 18 years ago it was Communist, well get over it! Thats not gonna change. Deal with the fact that America is not the center of the world, that there are other nations who have just as much military power. Not everyone is out to get you just because you have big guns. Why are our stupid politicians fussing when we have much bigger issues in the world and outside our world.