Bye-bye INF treaty?

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...reaty_999.html

Pat

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:28:14 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

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?

No, but I can imagine you saying such a silly thing. We didn't
abrogate the treaty. We withdrew, which was completely within the
bounds of the treaty.

Well, guess what?:
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russ...reaty_999.html

So? Do you really fantasize that they wouldn't do this if we hadn't
withdrawn from ABM? And do you really imagine that the Soviets were,
or Russians are, punctilious about treaties in general?

Rand Simberg wrote:
So? Do you really fantasize that they wouldn't do this if we hadn't
withdrawn from ABM? And do you really imagine that the Soviets were,
or Russians are, punctilious about treaties in general?


http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Why_...nse_999.htm l
The Russians are having a hard time figuring out why ABMs are to be put
in Poland to defend the U.S. against missile attack from Iran or North
Korea, in much the same way we would think it odd if Russia started
deploying ABMs in Mexico or Canada to defend Moscow from Chinese missile
attack.
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?
Simple; the point of all this is to act like real assholes and see if we
can **** off the Russians, and rub their little red noses in it.
With luck they'll start a new cold war, and then we can spend uncounted
more hundreds of billions defending ourselves against them.
In the spirit of the treaty, the Russians are abiding by the means to
withdraw from it:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/inf/text/inf.htm
"Article XV

1. This Treaty shall be of unlimited duration.

2. Each Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the
right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary
events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its
supreme interests. It shall give notice of its decision to withdraw to
the other Party six months prior to withdrawal from this Treaty. Such
notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events the
notifying Party regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests."
Having a foreign country deploying missiles on your border would
probably be considered an extraordinary event that jeopardized your
supreme interests, as the Cuban Missile Crisis showed.
So they are now going to have some fun at our expense, I imagine.
Our ABMs are designed to intercept ballistic missiles, so I imagine
they'll get working on hypersonic cruise missiles now.
If they can fake us out by pretending to have some super technology that
we must counter, they can bankrupt us the way we did them with Star
Wars, which would be quite ironic really.

Pat

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:53:31 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
So? Do you really fantasize that they wouldn't do this if we hadn't
withdrawn from ABM? And do you really imagine that the Soviets were,
or Russians are, punctilious about treaties in general?


http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Why_...nse_999.htm l
The Russians are having a hard time figuring out why ABMs are to be put
in Poland to defend the U.S. against missile attack from Iran or North
Korea, in much the same way we would think it odd if Russia started
deploying ABMs in Mexico or Canada to defend Moscow from Chinese missile
attack.
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?
Simple; the point of all this is to act like real assholes and see if we
can **** off the Russians, and rub their little red noses in it.
With luck they'll start a new cold war, and then we can spend uncounted
more hundreds of billions defending ourselves against them.

Yes, obviously, that's the real point.

rolling eyes

If they can fake us out by pretending to have some super technology that
we must counter, they can bankrupt us the way we did them with Star
Wars, which would be quite ironic really.

Dream on, Pat. Dream on.

On Feb 16, 7:53 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

The Russians are having a hard time figuring out why ABMs are to be put
in Poland to defend the U.S. against missile attack from Iran or North
Korea,


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.)


"Now the American military is covering itself against Iran. From the
military point of view, placing interceptor missiles in Poland and
radar facilities in the Czech Republic is a sound idea. The trajectory
of middle-range or intercontinental missiles, if they are created, and
aimed at targets in Europe or North America, is such that Poland looks
like the optimal location for interceptors.

[snip]

"What Russia Has to Be Afraid Of

"It is highly likely that the missile threat from "problem" states is
not the genuine reason for the creation of the missile defense system
by the Americans. The real motivation of the multibillion-dollar
undertaking is the desire to expand U.S. military and strategic
capacities and constrict those of other states that have nuclear
missiles, Russia and China most of all. Even a limited missile defense
system injects a high degree of indeterminacy into the strategic plans
of other countries and undermines the principle of mutual nuclear
deterrence. With Russia continuing to reduce its nuclear arsenal
significantly and China maintaining a low missile potential, the
Americans' ability to down even a few dozen warheads could deprive the
other side of guaranteed ability to cause the U.S. unacceptable damage
in a nuclear war.

"If current tendencies continue, Russia will be unlikely to have the
capacity to maintain more than 400-500 nuclear warheads by 2020.
Russian experts have estimated that the U.S. could down half of that
quantity with its missile defense system. That would be an especially
heavy blow if the Americans delivered a disarming nuclear missile
first strike and the remaining Russian missiles could be eliminated
almost completely.

"Of course, the first ten U.S. interceptor missiles in Poland will not
make a serious dent in Russian nuclear potential for the first few
years. But the Russian Army is buying six or seven Topol-M ballistic
missiles per year. The destruction of just one of two of them by the
American missile defense system would have a high price for Russia.
And the placement of a strategic weapons system in Poland, even a
defensive one, is a challenge to Moscow by Washington.

"Practically the only way to prevent a slow growth of the American
strategic advantage is a significant increase in the purchase of new
ballistic missiles by Russia. But the current Russian leadership is
not prepared for that, mainly for political reasons. Therefore,
Russia's reaction to the news of the possible placement of American
interceptor missiles by the Russian border was loud and disorderly,
both in political circles and in the press. Officials, as usual, made
a number of contradictory statements that amounted to the usual vague
threats to "take adequate measures," boasting ad unconvincing
justification for their helplessness. The Russian leadership had the
same initial reaction to the expansion of NATO and the U.S. withdrawal
from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Everything possible has been
done to convince the West that there is no need to pay attention to
Russia and Moscow's loud objections. For an "energy superpower," it is
more important to be able to pump its energy resources westward than
to maintain any strategic balances."



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..


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. 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.

"Allen Thomson" wrote:

"What Russia Has to Be Afraid Of

"It is highly likely that the missile threat from "problem" states is
not the genuine reason for the creation of the missile defense system
by the Americans. The real motivation of the multibillion-dollar
undertaking is the desire to expand U.S. military and strategic
capacities and constrict those of other states that have nuclear
missiles,

Which should surprise no one - as America tends to work in such a
fashion as to support and further it's own national goals. What
bothers me is that so many deluded people accept _other nations_ doing
so (supporting and furthering) - but boggle at the concept of the US
doing so.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:04:18 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

"Allen Thomson" wrote:

"What Russia Has to Be Afraid Of

"It is highly likely that the missile threat from "problem" states is
not the genuine reason for the creation of the missile defense system
by the Americans. The real motivation of the multibillion-dollar
undertaking is the desire to expand U.S. military and strategic
capacities and constrict those of other states that have nuclear
missiles,

Which should surprise no one - as America tends to work in such a
fashion as to support and further it's own national goals. What
bothers me is that so many deluded people accept _other nations_ doing
so (supporting and furthering) - but boggle at the concept of the US
doing so.

That's because Amerikkka is obviously evil and imperialistic, and the
worse country in the history of the world, other than Israel.

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

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?

Pat Flannery wrote:

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.

Even if the missiles had conventional warheads? I don't think you can
respond to an incoming ICBM from Iran with a full retaliatory nuclear
strike until you know that Iran is attacking with WMDs. And if you find
out that they aren't, you certainly can't.



--
Bush say global warm-warm not real
Even though ice gone and no seals
Polar bears can't find their meals
Grow as thin as Ally McBeals