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Bye-bye INF treaty?



 
 
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  #21  
Old February 16th 07, 11:58 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Default Bye-bye INF treaty?



Allen Thomson wrote:

Surprisingly enough, there's a not-bad discussion of possible Russian
worries in this regard from a Russian analyst at http://
www.kommersant.com/p741700/strategic_weapons/ . (Most such analysis
coming out of the FEE fails to impress.)


It's instructive to fire up Google Earth and draw great circles
between a site in Iran (I use central Iran, but choose your own launch
point), Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Remember to lead the targets
by a few degrees to take earth rotation into account. The trajectory
to DC does run right over the proposed Polish GBI sites in the
vicinity of Slupsk, but those towards more westerly CONUS targets pass
over western Russia.


What hits me as odd about that is that it doesn't make any sense from an
Iranian first strike perspective, as we would simply nuke them off the
face of the earth if they fired at us with a few missiles.
But it does make sense if what we are worried is a retaliatory Iranian
attack after a U.S. attack or invasion of Iran.
In short, this could be step one on the road to covering our ass for The
Big Oil Grab at some point in the future.
But if that were the case, we should have made sure the Russians
understood that, as they are very paranoid about unfriendly armed states
on their borders after what happened to them in WW I and II.
Their basic concept after WW II was to establish a one-country-deep
buffer zone of either friendly, or at least neutral states around
themselves, so that any invader would have to cross those nations first
before they got to the Soviet Union proper, and they'd have time to
deploy their military forces to battle the invaders before they made
inroads into Soviet territory, while at the same time keeping any
tactical use of nuclear weapons from occurring on their home soil.

So either the GBIs would have to be fired in the
direction of Russia and intercept the Iranian warhead over Russia, or
wait until the warheads got over the Arctic Ocean and do a stern
chase.


I can think of a million smarter things to do than firing a missile of
some sort towards Russia and seeing how they react.
These are the guys who almost started WW III over a unexpected launch of
a sounding rocket from Norway.

Pat
  #22  
Old February 17th 07, 12:04 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Rand Simberg[_1_]
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Posts: 8,311
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:58:51 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

It's instructive to fire up Google Earth and draw great circles
between a site in Iran (I use central Iran, but choose your own launch
point), Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Remember to lead the targets
by a few degrees to take earth rotation into account. The trajectory
to DC does run right over the proposed Polish GBI sites in the
vicinity of Slupsk, but those towards more westerly CONUS targets pass
over western Russia.


What hits me as odd about that is that it doesn't make any sense from an
Iranian first strike perspective, as we would simply nuke them off the
face of the earth if they fired at us with a few missiles.


Yes, you can't imagine that they might actually believe the
apocalyptic rants that they spout daily, and are actually interested
in immanentizing the eschaton.

(Hint: MAD only works when both parties want to survive)

But it does make sense if what we are worried is a retaliatory Iranian
attack after a U.S. attack or invasion of Iran.
In short, this could be step one on the road to covering our ass for The
Big Oil Grab at some point in the future.


Ahhhh...of course.

It's all an Amerikkkan plot to steal the Ooooiiiillll!

Has it ever occurred to you that you're a living parody of the
conspiracy leftist?
  #23  
Old February 17th 07, 12:54 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?



Rand Simberg wrote:

Yes, you can't imagine that they might actually believe the
apocalyptic rants that they spout daily, and are actually interested
in immanentizing the eschaton.

(Hint: MAD only works when both parties want to survive)


The ayatollahs may chant a lot, but they are as keen to get destroyed as
TV evangilists are to have Christ really show up and start passing out
the judgments on people.
Imagine what people would think of America if they thought we really
were going to do things the way Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wanted
us to.
We want the end of the world to occur ASAP, that's what they'd think.

Has it ever occurred to you that you're a living parody of the
conspiracy leftist?


Yup, me and Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...576593,00.html


Pat
  #24  
Old February 17th 07, 02:02 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Rand Simberg[_1_]
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Posts: 8,311
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:55:24 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
What makes it so pointless is that 10 ABMs in Poland are worthless
against a North Korean attack and so would only be of any possible use
against a Iranian attack that overflew Europe on the way to the U.S..
Iran would realize an attack by that few missiles would be suicidal, so
that doesn't make sense either, so what's the point of all this?


We've been through this before, Pat: it makes no sense *if* you assume
that the leadership in Iran (and its neighbors) will always be rational
enough and secure enough that deterrence will work. Unfortunately, it's
easy to think of reasons why that might not be the case. Notably, in
countries where the consequences of political failure often include sudden
death, a leader who's backed himself into a corner may personally have
nothing to lose by playing nuclear Chicken with the US.

As one P. Flannery was heard to say a couple of months back:

You'll say: "But yes! But a nuclear war could wipe out all of our nation."
Oddly enough, anyone it wipes out _after_ me isn't of much concern to me
in any concrete form. :-D


Ahhhh...yes, Henry, but you forget that this also demonstrates that
Pat is a solipsistic narcissist, so he couldn't possibly imagine that
anyone else actually exists, let alone that they could be as
solipsistic and indifferent to others as Pat Flannery.
  #25  
Old February 17th 07, 02:35 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?



Henry Spencer wrote:

You'll say: "But yes! But a nuclear war could wipe out all of our nation."
Oddly enough, anyone it wipes out _after_ me isn't of much concern to me
in any concrete form. :-D


By that I meant that I didn't want to get killed in one, nor do I
imagine much of the population does.
After I get vaporised, whatever the fate of the rest of Earth's history
is like is pretty moot as far as I'm concerned.
I could almost picture North Korea being whacko enough do do something
like this, but not Iran.
And even in North Korea's case, their nuclear test seems to have
generated the exact political response they wanted, so it wasn't as
crazy as it was clever.
And North Korean missiles aren't going to be flying anywhere near Poland
on there way to the U.S., so we can leave them out of this equation,
which leaves us with Crazy Islam standing in the line-up of the usual
suspects.
The Iranian government will give a lot of lip service to a glorious
Islamic death in Jihad, but I'm pretty sure if you were to hold a candle
up to one of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ears and peered into the other one,
you would not see Allah in there.
At least among the upper levels of Iranian society and government, Islam
is something probably treated a lot like Christianity is here in the
U.S. among our politicians. Sure, theoretically everyone believes in it
if asked, but if you found someone who really did believe in it in
public office, you'd strongly suspect that they were either stupid or
had mental problems.
It's a salve for the poor, who don't have money but do have their
holiness deposited in the bank of heaven.
In fact, as I pointed out, we seem to have our own pack of nuts
franticly wishing for the end of the world after some huge holy war in
which they can fight and then be taken up in The Rapture, and yet we
haven't decided to nuke Magog to speed things up.
You want a country with nuclear weapons that would be every bit as
dangerous as Iran if the wrong people got their hands on them?
May I nominate Israel?
A country that has more splinter groups of oddball religious zealots
running around in it than even the U.S., and which is franticly waiting
around for the Messiah to show up, leaving them open to the
Holyman-of-the-week club, as was quite accurately show in Monty Python's
"Life Of Brian".
Everybody remembers Jesus, but they forget we was only one in a long
line of would-be Messiah Rabbis from that period of time, including the
one from a few years before who when asked it people should pay taxes to
the Romans, said "No" and was crucified pronto for that statement.
Between our own right-wing nutjob reverends looking to get the battle of
Armageddon going in Israel by the middle of next year at the latest, and
a bunch of desperate Rabbis peeking under every rock to find the
Messiah, you could picture something going very wrong indeed in regards
to the Israeli nuclear arsenal, every bit as much as you could with the
Mahdi showing up in Tehran next Tuesday.

Pat
  #27  
Old February 17th 07, 03:01 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Eric Chomko
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Posts: 2,630
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?


Fred J. McCall wrote:
"Eric Chomko" wrote:

:On Feb 16, 1:50 pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Pat Flannery wrote:
:
: :Remember how I said pulling out of the ABM treaty was a dumb move,
: :because the Russians would think that any treaty we had with them wasn't
: :worth the paper it was written on?
: :Well, guess what?:
: :http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russ..._Quit_INF_Trea...
:
: So, if the Russians have no plans to shoot at Europe, what is the
: problem?
:
:So that is why we allowed nukes in Cuba? Oops, we didn't allow them
:and we don't have plans to shoot at Cuba either. Counterintel just
:isn't your bag is it Freddy?

Sense just isn't your bag is it El Chimpko?

What, pray tell, does your preceding spew have to do with ANYTHING?

: So, if the Russians have no plans to shoot at Europe, what do they
: want to get back into the IRBM business for?
:
: So, who do you think the Europeans will blame for the Russians
: building a nuclear arsenal aimed straight at them?
:
:I guess it all depends where we plan on putting ours.

We're talking about US deployment of AN ANTI-MISSILE SYSTEM IN POLAND
AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA, you stupid *******. *WE* are not talking about
"putting ours" anywhere at all.


Yes, yes the Department of Defense doesn't attack, they merely defend.
You have the nerve to call me a stupid ******* yet you believe that we
are beyond attacking anyone and merely defend ourselves. Iraq, you
stupid *******!

Would YOU trust any country putting anti-missile sites around the US
as being merely prudent as you seem to think we are in Eastern Europe
doing the same damn thing!?

We are so easy because too many people think just like you and not
like the enemy. Again, counterintel-challenged aren't you Freddy?

Eric


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson


  #28  
Old February 17th 07, 03:03 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Quadibloc
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Posts: 7,018
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

Eric Chomko wrote:
I don't know what is worse, those that are brainwashed into thinking
that the US and Israel are the worst countries in the world or those
that are brainwashed into thinking that they are best countries in the
world.


Canada and New Zealand are much nicer! They are more friendly and
peaceful. Dishonest police officers running "speed traps", or framing
black motorists for traffic offences in order to search their vehicles
without being accused of racial profiling, are unheard of! Citizens of
these countries of Arab origin can go from place to place without
harassment! Universal health care is paid for by the government!

But do I feel like lording this over the United States? No. Countries
like Israel, Taiwan, or South Korea are not as comfortable to live in
as Canada. The lives of people in those countries are regimented in
some ways that our lives are not. Young men have to serve a term in
the armed forces in those countries (and in Greece, Britain, and in
much of Continental Europe, in fact, too).

That's because countries like Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea happen
to have hostile neighbors close beside them. They are under a genuine
threat of attack. So the problems of life in *those* countries are not
the fault of their regimes... they are the fault of their enemies.

All right, so what is the United States' excuse?

One of your former Presidents, Harold "S" Truman, kept a notice on his
desk with the wording of which you may be familiar.

Before World War II, the American people thought that they could
practise the policy of isolationism. Let foreigners squabble over
their silly differences and kill each other; America is far from these
squabbles, and strong enough to defend itself, so it need not court
trouble. It can just mind its own business, and enjoy peace forever.

It took Pearl Harbor to shock America out of that thinking. And then
the liberation of Belsen caused many to question the morality of
isolationism.

Then the Soviet theft of the secret of the Atom Bomb meant that the
world was a small place, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans no more
guaranteed security than the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Danube. The
strangling of the infant democracies of Eastern Europe, so soon before
freed from the Nazi jackboot, made it clear that Stalin was an enemy
of freedom.

To preserve its own freedom, the United States had to fight the Cold
War itself. Unlike the rest of the world, it didn't have a bigger
democratic superpower that would hold off the Communist menace so that
it could irresponsibly bask in low taxes.

Best country in the world? The United States has its internal
problems. Because it had certain international responsibilities to
live up to, however, it has not had the luxury of concentrating
exclusively on fixing them.

John Savard

  #29  
Old February 17th 07, 05:17 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall
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Posts: 5,736
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

"Eric Chomko" wrote:

:
:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: "Eric Chomko" wrote:
:
: :On Feb 16, 1:50 pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: : Pat Flannery wrote:
: :
: : :Remember how I said pulling out of the ABM treaty was a dumb move,
: : :because the Russians would think that any treaty we had with them wasn't
: : :worth the paper it was written on?
: : :Well, guess what?:
: : :http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russ..._Quit_INF_Trea...
: :
: : So, if the Russians have no plans to shoot at Europe, what is the
: : problem?
: :
: :So that is why we allowed nukes in Cuba? Oops, we didn't allow them
: :and we don't have plans to shoot at Cuba either. Counterintel just
: :isn't your bag is it Freddy?
:
: Sense just isn't your bag is it El Chimpko?
:
: What, pray tell, does your preceding spew have to do with ANYTHING?
:
: : So, if the Russians have no plans to shoot at Europe, what do they
: : want to get back into the IRBM business for?
: :
: : So, who do you think the Europeans will blame for the Russians
: : building a nuclear arsenal aimed straight at them?
: :
: :I guess it all depends where we plan on putting ours.
:
: We're talking about US deployment of AN ANTI-MISSILE SYSTEM IN POLAND
: AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA, you stupid *******. *WE* are not talking about
: "putting ours" anywhere at all.
:
:Yes, yes the Department of Defense doesn't attack, they merely defend.

So you ignore THE FACTS and just bleat. Typical El Chimpko.

:You have the nerve to call me a stupid ******* yet you believe that we
:are beyond attacking anyone and merely defend ourselves.

Where did I say that, you stupid *******?

:Iraq, you stupid *******!

Irrelevant, you dumb ****.

:Would YOU trust any country putting anti-missile sites around the US
:as being merely prudent as you seem to think we are in Eastern Europe
:doing the same damn thing!?

El Chimpko, you dumb ****, look at the FACTS. Such weapons in the
places described are no good at stopping weapons aimed at the US from
Russia or China (or even North Korea).

If someone wants to put anti-missile sites in Cuba or Mexico, why,
more power to them!

:We are so easy because too many people think just like you and not
:like the enemy. Again, counterintel-challenged aren't you Freddy?

Need to smarten up to work your way UP to 'dumb ****', don't you, El
Chimpko?

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
  #30  
Old February 17th 07, 09:20 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Henry Spencer
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Posts: 2,170
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
After I get vaporised, whatever the fate of the rest of Earth's history
is like is pretty moot as far as I'm concerned.


Exactly. Which means that if you're the Maximum Leader of Flanneristan,
and you expect that reversing your "reclaim those lost provinces even if
the US objects" policy would lead to your being deposed and executed, then
deterrence is useless against you. Going head-to-head with the US,
despite the risk of starting a nuclear war, is your smartest move. It
might work, and the alternative is certain death.

Changing that "might" to "probably won't" would be a big, big improvement.

I could almost picture North Korea being whacko enough do do something
like this, but not Iran.


I actually am inclined to agree with this... today. The current Iranian
government probably *can* be deterred.

However, that wasn't always the case. In particular, even though he was
theoretically the US's buddy, the Shah was a dangerous man, who wanted to
re-establish the Persian Empire and wasn't above taking some big chances
to do it. Despite the odious nature of the regime that replaced him, I'm
not sorry to see him gone. However, there are more like him around, and
ten years from now, one of them might be in charge again.

And note that I said "(and its neighbors)". That general area is not
noted for its stability. Given the lead times, establishing a missile-
interceptor base is more about tomorrow's politics than today's.

which leaves us with Crazy Islam standing in the line-up of the usual
suspects.


Right beside Crazy Imperialist -- both the Shah and Saddam Hussein being
recent examples of would-be Mideast Hitlers whose motives had little or
nothing to do with Islam.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
 




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