Putin is no fool. He knows that Bush wants Russian oil, and has another four years to dream up some feeble excuse to go get it.
Ten warheads on each missile. No ABMS can stop it.
Clinton, that whoremonger, was helping the Russians to dismantle the nuke missiles, just four short years ago.
Ghee, I feel safe knowing GWB has "values.".
Well on a positive note, we are back in an area of confrontation where Condi Rice, the newly nominated Secretary of State, is an expert. Yes, her Ph.D Thesis was on containing the Russian Bear. Whew! I was getting a bit worried myself.
Got to ask why you are using this group for nothing but your own political forum. Can't you find some politics newsgroup to spew your stuff on and leave the rest of us alone to discuss modeling? Another one for the killfile.
Sigh. MIRE-red warheads came in in the... damn, I can't remember, I _know_ they were in use in the 1980s, I just can point at them arriving in the 1970s or 1960s (or the 1950s??).
1970s, I believe. The Monogram model Missile Arsenal (the one that showed the Soviet missile as well as the American) indicated that some of those birds were MIRE-red.
Anyway, I don't trust ANY politician.
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
What's wrong, Vess -- no more election diatribes so you've decided to be a bonafide troll? (not that you weren't one before...) Back I say! Back under your bridge!
I'm your worst nightmare, an oil and gas guy with a background in military matters.
As for Putin fearing our desire for Russian oil that is balderdash. His single greatest asset is our desire for Russian oil. We have many billions of dollars invested annually in improving Russian production so we can buy their product. This influx of western funds is what is keeping them afloat. We are buying oil from them. And more relevantly, we are investing there and helping them produce and sell oil. Why would we invade to take oil we can buy? That is left wing lunatic ranting.
A new MIRV or MARV equipped ICBM from the Russian Strategic Forces is not the primary threat the ABM system is currently envisaged as countering. Russia knows bloody damn well that any inbound missile will still likely trigger the whole cold war MAD wargasm. They have not been our best friends for the nearly 60 years of nuclear weapon history. The ABM that is being deployed is a stepping stone to bigger more capable systems as technology progresses. It is currently hoped it can counter any launch from a state such oh I don't know perhaps North Korea, or maybe Iran. Those folks thankfully don't have the infrastructure to put hundreds of ICBMs on trajectory towards us.
The current ABM we are deploying will only intercept a single inbound track per missile. If the bus deploys its MIRV/MARVs before the interception point then there will be multiple tracks. And lets not forget penaids. The Russians know all this already, and they don't give a hoot about the ABM we are deploying right now. Two generations of interceptors later may be a different matter. It will be a BIG leap in technology for the N. Koreans and the Iranians to get to the point where the could start MIRV deployment from their systems. They need both a large jump in throw weight and a HUGE jump in weapons miniaturization.
The US is still helping to fund efforts to dismantle the former soviet nuclear arsenals. That however, is one big ugly can of worms and is also contributing to the current modernization push for a newer missile over there. We help them dismantle old weapons the don't want anyway. This lowers their support costs, and allows them to spend money and effort on new weapons. It also gives them funds to keep their weapons designer emploeeyed. This is somewhat preferable to having them put their skills on the market for the like of say N. Korea and Iran to hire them. The nuclear missile is a prestige thing for most of the world. It is the ultimate bragging justification. If they don't shed this image of declining military capability who will want to buy their war toys? The global weapons market is thankfully in decline for the last several years, however the russian decline in arms sales has been far more marked than ours.
Let's review. The US and our allies succeeded in 1991 in decimating the air defenses of one of the most heavily defended nations in the world. This gave us a mostly unrestricted capability to bombard them for a few weeks prior to the invasion to liberate Kuwait. When the ground war started we effectively decimated the fourth largest army in the world in a mere 100 hours. From a global military planning perspective this was nearly as catastrophic as WWIII was expected to be. The lopsidedness of the exchange was earthshattering. The Iraqis used used a mix of Soviet, French, and Chinese miltary equipment and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. And they were shredded. The Iraqis used Soviet tactics taught by Soviet advisors, perhaps they weren't the brightest, best educated, and trained soldiers in the world but if you might recall the hand-wringers droned on and on about how battle hardened they were and imbued with a religous fervor about fighting infidels in their lands. A mere two years before the vaunted Soviet military machine finally threw in the towel in Afghanistan after 10 years of being harrassed by the mujahedeen. In 2001 we stomped on the Taliban and accomplished in 60 days what the Soviets coulkdn't in 10 years. I'll grant there was a lot of progress in technology between their effort and ours but that is exactly the point. In 2003 we finally remov ed Hussein.
The whole world is chomping at the bit to buy modern US arms. What is bizarre about it all is that sales of our arms generally tends to make the neighborhood more peaceful. We have this annoying habit of attaching strings to our arms sales, silly things like refraining from invading your neighbors. We have stopped arms sales to folks that have been causing too much trouble for example Indonesia and Pakistan. We take offense when we see US made figheter aircraft strafing civilians in E. Timor.
If we weren't beating the Israelis over the head with arguments urging restraint theier use might just be a touch more. The Israelis go to great pains to have precision targeting on the Hamas terrorists they bomb. The neat thing every Israel basher likes to overlook is the fact that the terrorists do not put their bomb factories in out in the countryside nor even on the outskirts of town. No they like to put them right in the middle of the refugee camps and residential areas where collateral damage is gauranteed. The Palestinaian terrorists deliberately target civilians, they have a particular fetish for buses and shopping malls. The palestinain people either welcome or at a minimum tolerate the terrorist elements in their midst which leads to these photo ops of civilian casualties.
Even if we agree to disagree on our support of Israel I will stack our record up against the other arms merchants out there.
We pressure the our trading partners to play nice with their populations or cut off sales and parts.
Name one time the Soviets, French or Germans held up an arms deal because the buyer was involved in some heinous activities.
Ok, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait garnered general disapproval, but lets not forget who led the process to embargo future arms sales to dear old SoDamn Insane. And do we really wnat to investigate the recent arms purchases he made with the money he diverted out of the Oil-for-Food program?
Our major trading partners are in general much more reputable folks than the former Soviet Unions usual crowd of customers.
Who have the Durtch invaded, The Germans, Italians, British, Australians, South Koreans, Japanese, Saudis, Norwegians, Canadians.....
On the other hand, but take a wild guess whose equipment is preferred by Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milsovic, Nikolai Chaucecscu, Kim Jong Il, Daniel Ortega, and plethora of nations whose leaders are escaping me at the moment.
And lets not forget Osama. What assault rifle and Rocket Propelled Grenage Launcher does he favor in all his propaganda and recruitment videos?
It's because he can't help himself. He's too thick to understand that no one wants to read his crap. He's too stubborn to admit that he was wrong and too bitter to just give it up. He's going to end up PNG and the funny part is that he's doing all the work. :~)
-- -- -- -- -- "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." George Orwell
Hey Dave, got news for you, When you build a model of anything outside of an airliner or a passenger car, you are making a political statement. So shut the f*ck up, We can say what we want, when we want, after all this IS still America!
Besides, we have a 8000 MPH hyper-rocket now-we can strap a nice 60 megaton nuke on it, and pop Moscow before thier russkie turd can deploy its payload!
As I see it, the flaw in a missile defense against N Korea or Iran is what political goals would they achieve by launching a handful of ballistic missiles at us even if they hit? Our second strike could turn both countries into glass. Nuclear blackmail? Hell, they could FedEx a nuke here. Or just feed the neocon chuckleheads in the new State Dept and CIA a line that one is already here, in some warehouse under some Afrika Korps pith helmets. The same result- we hold 'em or fold 'em.. Kim M
Dutch- Indonesia Germans-everybody in Europe British- Everywhere else Japanese-Indonesia, China, Philippines Saudis- Hejaz Canadians-Maine Norwegians- You got me there
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