NationStates Jolt Archive

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,2098257,00.html

Interesting idea. As you know, Russia is furious that the US wants to place interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic. But no one saw this coming.

My guess is that the Kremlin now realizes that it no longer has the power to influence US foreign policy. Yet having the seige mentality the Russians have always had, they were probably quite afraid that a missile shield outside of their control could compromise their nuclear detterant (or what's left of it). So they probably figure that they should get it to the one fmr. Soviet republic they can control.
Now if they are going that far, why not they allow the US to place interceptors on Russian soil? Russia is a big country, and a geostrategic dream. If the US placed another site somewhere in Russia's Far East, the whole Eurasian continent could be covered. Of course, the Russians would never accept that, but it does carry the logic of Putin's plan to its logical conclusion.

Azerbaijan may not be suitable for the type of defense missiles that the US has created. Bush has said that the tech junkies will look into the proposal to see if it they could use Azerbaijan as the site.

It's good to hear the Russians are being reasonable. :)

I heard about this. At least the Russians seem to be wanting to comprimise.

Azerbaijan may not be suitable for the type of defense missiles that the US has created. Bush has said that the tech junkies will look into the proposal to see if it they could use Azerbaijan as the site.

Is the problem with Azerbaijan, geographically, or with the missile system? Hope they figure it out.

It's good to hear the Russians are being reasonable. :)

thats true,i have always felt the russians were anything if not practical.
i hope bush is not just paying lip service to them.

it does seem to be a rather decent compromise by putin,if it is in fact feasible for the actual application of the system.

The US has admitted themselves that any missile defense system in Europe could easily be overwhelmed by the Russians.

-1 for Putin

could it be that the cold war is over and we can all be friends now:eek:

If I were Putin I'd fly a few dummy missiles over Polish territory and blow them up mid flight, just to give them a scare.

Any tries at compromise are better than entering a new Cold War...I hope they can agree on a place for the defense system.

could it be that the cold war is over and we can all be friends now:eek:

Of course not, now stick your head between your legs...and kiss your ass goodbye...:( I knew ye well

Of course not, now stick your head between your legs...and kiss your ass goodbye...:( I knew ye well

look on the bright side if a war ever came of it you will probably be disintegrated in the first few moments/die painfully slowly as your flesh falls from your bones....its the ones that survive and have to live with the repercussions that I would feel sorry for :)

If I were Putin I'd fly a few dummy missiles over Polish territory and blow them up mid flight, just to give them a scare.
Screwing around with NATO = bad idea.

Well, I hope this deal works out. Maybe the Russians will learn then how the whole thing works. The interceptors are made to deal with an incoming ICBM at one specific stage in its flight path.

The type of interceptors that will go into Europe are positioned in such a way that they would be pretty much useless when it comes to protecting the US from a Russian ICBM. Doesn't anyone ever remember that a Russian missile would take the shortest route - over the North Pole? The world is a globe, afterall.

Anyways, I'm thinking maybe they should just get a bunch of those sea-based interceptors they have in the Sea of Japan and put them in the Mediterranean. At least those are close to working properly.

Actually, I believe the Russians have a functioning ABM system around Moscow. The ABM treaty permits it.

I say, go for it.

Is the problem with Azerbaijan, geographically, or with the missile system? Hope they figure it out.

My guess is it's the fact that Azerbaijan borders Iran.

If Russia wants them in the Caucasus, couldn't the missiles be placed in Georgia instead?

Hell...put them in Turkey, right next door...another NATO member.

Screwing around with NATO = bad idea.

Yeppers.

Well, I hope this deal works out. Maybe the Russians will learn then how the whole thing works. The interceptors are made to deal with an incoming ICBM at one specific stage in its flight path.

Which makes me wonder if it will even work in Azerbaijan. If our first choices were Poland and the Czech Republic, wouldn't Azerbaijan be too close??

The type of interceptors that will go into Europe are positioned in such a way that they would be pretty much useless when it comes to protecting the US from a Russian ICBM. Doesn't anyone ever remember that a Russian missile would take the shortest route - over the North Pole? The world is a globe, afterall.

Not to mention the fact that the Russians could easy circumvent the defense through simple saturation. They have more nukes than we have interceptors.

Anyways, I'm thinking maybe they should just get a bunch of those sea-based interceptors they have in the Sea of Japan and put them in the Mediterranean. At least those are close to working properly.

Wouldn't that necessitate AEGIS cruisers in the Eastern Med...maybe even the Black Sea??

They carry Tomahawks too (which can also be armed with nukes)...I don't think Russia would be too keen on the idea.

All that aside...it's good to see both sides are working together on the issue. I think that Russia and the U.S. have more in common than either government would readily admit, and both nations would be much better off working together rather than opposing one another.

I often wonder what might have happened if an idealogical difference had been set aside after WWII.

How might the world have turned out if the two most powerful nations in the history of the globe (Cold War U.S. and USSR) worked together instead of in opposition?

*sad sigh*

look on the bright side if a war ever came of it you will probably be disintegrated in the first few moments/die painfully slowly as your flesh falls from your bones....its the ones that survive and have to live with the repercussions that I would feel sorry for :)

Yea I'd rather die in a nuclear war than live through it and have serious and painful repercussions....

My guess is it's the fact that Azerbaijan borders Iran.

According to one of the 24 hr news channels, CNN i think, they claimed the problem is that it borders Iran so if they launched any missiles towards Europe, the radar wouldn't be able to track the missiles for very long before losing them and that the site picked is unsuitable for the task anyway. It could all be bullshit though, trusting the news is always chancy. :p

If I were Putin I'd fly a few dummy missiles over Polish territory and blow them up mid flight, just to give them a scare.

Which would probably cause a full retaliatory strike seeing that Russia fired missiles.

Welcome to WWIII, Caused by an accident!

Actually, I believe the Russians have a functioning ABM system around Moscow. The ABM treaty permits it.

I say, go for it.

"working" as far as they just fire them blindly, and since they have nuclear warheads, you just hope they hit something.

Screwing around with NATO = bad idea.
I always wonder why my country at present is seen as being somehow more reckless and lacking common sense than the USSR at the low point of ideologically driven malignancy.

Well, I hope this deal works out. Maybe the Russians will learn then how the whole thing works. The interceptors are made to deal with an incoming ICBM at one specific stage in its flight path.
It's a good idea indeed; pity the US in all probability is going to reject it.

The type of interceptors that will go into Europe are positioned in such a way that they would be pretty much useless when it comes to protecting the US from a Russian ICBM. Doesn't anyone ever remember that a Russian missile would take the shortest route - over the North Pole? The world is a globe, afterall.
But who are they supposed to protect, and from whom? Iran has no ICBMs yet, and the routes of the North Korean ones would pass too far from Europe. Over here it is viewed as a stupid attempt to piss us off. Well, Russians are quite angry now.

It's a good idea indeed; pity the US in all probability is going to reject it.
Well, the first question is whether it makes technical sense. There's quite a distance between the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan. I'm not an engineer and I don't know much about the system in question, but maybe it's a problem if the missiles have passed the radar station without having reached the stage of the trajectory at which the kill vehicles can actually hit it.

But who are they supposed to protect, and from whom? Iran has no ICBMs yet, and the routes of the North Korean ones would pass too far from Europe.
The assumption is that Iran will have developed them soon. The Shahab 7 and so on have been in the pipeline for a while.

It's probably all about game theory. The defense system drastically reduces the potential threat of Iran and thus makes it less attractive to develop these weapons in the first place.

But the whole rhetoric has been confusing me. As far as I know, these are kinetic kill vehicles designed to smash into the warhead as it travels in space. Placing them in Poland wouldn't offer any protection to Europe because those missiles wouldn't travel in space for very long (it would be a very funny-looking trajectory). As I see it, it's about tracking it in space as it moves towards the US and shooting it down. That's why Britain offered to host the radar as well, which would make no sense if the system was to protect central Europe or even Britain itself.

You're right about North Korea. For that they have two layers at the moment - in the Sea of Japan they have AEGIS ships (both Japanese and American) which can intercept shorter range missiles and long-range ones at an early stage of the flight.

And in Alaska they've got several interceptors (the same as proposed for Poland, I believe) already. And they're doing something in Hawaii, but I have no idea what.

All in all, it's basically obvious that it's not directed against the Russians. But Putin has always been good at playing diplomatic PR games like this, and the Bush Administration is horribly bad at them.

Over here it is viewed as a stupid attempt to piss us off. Well, Russians are quite angry now.
Well, I have to say I don't think it's justified. The Americans did notify the Russians several times. I don't see how the technical details of it all paint the picture Putin is talking about.

I think the whole thing is an elaborate game played by Putin. He knows very well that the system doesn't change anything for Russia. But he knows that by raising a stink about it he can start a fight between Western Europeans and Americans, between Western Europeans and Eastern Europeans and just generally improve Russia's relative position.

And then, I guess there's the whole bitterness about ex-Warsaw Bloc nations joining NATO and working so closely with the Americans. No idea about Putin himself but I think a few of his ex-KGB and Red Army mates would feel uncomfortable about it.

Vladimir Putin sprang a diplomatic surprise yesterday in his dispute with America over the siting of a US missile defence system in Europe, suggesting instead that it could be placed in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
Instead, no. In addition to, yes.