U.S. and Russia Missile Defense Talks Deadlock

U.S. and Russia Missile Defense Talks Deadlock

www.armscontrol.org

A year-long U.S.-Russian effort to find ways to cooperate on European missile defense ground to a halt in November and December, just months before the NATO summit in Chicago this May and in the midst of presidential election seasons in both countries.

Moscow is now threatening to boycott the summit and take other retaliatory measures, such as deploying short-range missiles in Kaliningrad to destroy NATO interceptors and withdrawing from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

In reply, U.S. and NATO officials said that their plans to deploy a missile interceptor system in E

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I tried to get other sources for this news, but I've yet to find any western confirmation, I guess it's still too fresh.

Anyway, I think this is a lot more important than it seems. Since the end of Cold War we have been seen clear efforts from both sides to tone down the nuclear muscles, but at the same time, the decision of NATO to enforce their defense capabilities against any nuclear missile strikes has been itching on Russia's back for some time.

I believe this is something to be really concerned about. Not because it's fear mongering, or war mongering. I'm not going into those sorts of scenarios, I will merely comment on facts.

But the facts are indeed frightening, in lack of a better word.

Russia is claiming they are not going to pursue talks if these are the conditions they have to meet (allowing NATO to put defense systems wherever they want to), going as far as saying they will scrap the START treaty.

Not only that, but they also say they will provably enforce their attitude by actually raising their nuclear capabilities, not lowering them.

As a response, the U.S. is calling their bluff, stating they won't change their attitude because of this.

Interesting times we live in.

www.armscontrol.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

What's to talk about? Russia to this very day targets the west with their icbm's and that's why we are building the shield. Why on earth would we give them any specifics regarding those systems that have cost billions to develop. Why cant Russia design their own shield?

Originally posted by Fitch303
What's to talk about? Russia to this very day targets the west with their icbm's and that's why we are building the shield. Why on earth would we give them any specifics regarding those systems that have cost billions to develop. Why cant Russia design their own shield?

edit on 8-2-2012 by Fitch303 because: (no reason given)

But that's the point of nuclear weapons, at least in the US-Russia case. They aimed them at each-other so neither of them would use them, the so called M.A.D. philosophy.

It's not only Russia that has their ICBM's pointed at the west, the U.S. and allied countries do the same.

The thing is, although Russia's arsenal is still higher in number than the U.S., the U.S. didn't go through a regime revolution like the fall of the Soviet's. Neither did it go through all the corruption and disregard for the country "health" in terms of offense and defense like Russia did.

Since the Manhattan project, U.S. nuclear capabilities have stayed the same in terms of effectiveness and provably readiness. Russia didn't. I suspect that only in recent years they have started to clean out the dust in their weapons, and it will provably take them some time (at least in peace-time) to get them in any sort of effective operational status.

I'm not on Russia's side, but I understand their motives. People argue that NATO is using a defense system, but what people forget to mention is that this defense system is made up by missiles, and like Russia states, they are aimed at them, it's not just casually sitting there, waiting to be used.

This might seem a futile argument, but it's much more complex if you do what these guys have to do (think of all the scenarios). We might all be good and dandy regarding the U.S. stability, but the Russians see the west like we see them... a possible threat.

So, if they consider us a possible threat (doesn't matter how remote that possibility is), and we start planting this systems just across their borders, don't they have reasons to be concerned? People need to consider how these people think in strategy. To them, one scenario that provably scares them is if the U.S. or NATO strikes first (for whatever reason). They will them respond by sending their missiles, but since they have this "missile shield" the Russia ICBM's would be intercepted (at least in theory).

I don't know the details of these systems, that's out of my league. But I think it's fairly safe to assume that a missile being launched inside Russia, and then being intercepted and blown out of the sky, would provably spread fallout in their own heads.

That's why this whole issue is an actual threat to Russia's safety, and not only in strategy terms.

Originally posted by Fitch303
Why cant Russia design their own shield?

Only noticed this after posting.

Well, Russia doesn't want to design it's own defense shield because they don't see the need for one. If you sign several treaty's like Russia and the U.S. did, then it would be safe to assume that nuclear weapons would be a thing of the past, eventually. And that was the impression Russia had, apparently.

But the U.S. hasn't been acting like that. Instead of giving them up, the U.S. stopped mass-producing nuclear warheads, and started thinking on how to use fewer, but more strategically. The U.S. still has around 2000 nuclear warheads in active state. That's a lot of nukes. Combine that with the NATO missile defense system and they can be virtually unreachable, and that's a no-no in therms of feeling safe in Russia. They need to at least have the feeling that they can strike back, in other for their diplomatic talk to work.

And although Russia has around 11000 in total, only around 2000 of those are still in active status, which kind of states how they are trying to get rid of them, and didn't trash all of them at once because that's too expensive, and because the U.S. still has nukes too...

It's like two cowboys lowering their pistols but waiting for each-other to get their gun lower than the other.

All these threats are getting on my last nerve. Let Russia do what it wants. I am in favor of just walking away. Quit with the pissing contests already! We have spent decades trying to disarm nuclear weapons, and now that is all anyone talks about. The fallout, pun intended, from nuclear weapons is horrendous, anyone with any brains can see this is a no win scenario. Even getting rid of these weapons is a huge mess. Basically you are poisoning yourself and your own people. Disgusting!

Originally posted by Iamschist
All these threats are getting on my last nerve. Let Russia do what it wants. I am in favor of just walking away. Quit with the pissing contests already! We have spent decades trying to disarm nuclear weapons, and now that is all anyone talks about. The fallout, pun intended, from nuclear weapons is horrendous, anyone with any brains can see this is a no win scenario. Even getting rid of these weapons is a huge mess. Basically you are poisoning yourself and your own people. Disgusting!

Is fallout really that bad? Nagasaki and Hiroshima have been rebuilt and people still live there. Most if not all nuclear weapons are designed to (air burst) a few thousand feet above the surface for maximum effect which significantly minimizes and fallout.

reply to post by Fitch303

Is fallout really that bad? Nagasaki and Hiroshima have been rebuilt and people still live there. Most if not all nuclear weapons are designed to (air burst) a few thousand feet above the surface for maximum effect which significantly minimizes and fallout.

Yeah it is all good, let er rip! Seriously? Are you saying hey is isn't that bad so what is all the fuss about?

well this is a touchy topic I dont think opinions will work to solve the prolbem, and i noticed there are very thought out post i wonder if the people in charge see it this way or there is something else we are missing. I know they say we americans try to be the police of the world i wonder if russia sees something that can come bad out of this.

Oh no,what now? Sanctions, a coalition of the ignorant and a no fly zone?Goodluck with that one!
Secondline.
Thirdline for good measure.

This is a hugely important issue and it's definitely not getting the attention it deserves. Unfortunately it has the potential to blow up in all of our faces without much warning, which is scary as hell. Forget the days of the past because it's not the same anymore, Russia won't back down and is taking her stance as World Superpower once again and won't be bullied by any Country. I can't blame them for taking a harder stance, if the U.S. missile shield is really not aimed towards them then why can't we get some legal guarantees (not that it's stopped anyone before)?

We CAN change the path we're on if we start to speak louder and tell the U.S. what they need to do to ensure peace with Russia. If we don't, well, anyone remember the movie "The Day After"? I sure do, can't get it out of my mind.

Here's a topic I made a couple days ago about Russia boosting their nuclear capability;
www.abovetopsecret.com...