This Is Not The Way To Halt Global Warming
It would appear that the Strategic Rocket Forces have regained their premier position in the Russian military
Luke Harding in Moscow for The Guardian reports on the May 29 Russian missile test:
Russia yesterday threatened a new cold war-style arms race with the United States by announcing that it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of penetrating American defences.
Russia’s hawkish first deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, said the country had tested both a new multiple-warhead intercontinental missile, the RS-24, and an improved version of its short-range Iskander missile.
Global Security has an article on the RS-24, a solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] with a warhead containing multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles [MIRV], 10 of them.
The Associated Press reports on Putin’s saber-rattling:
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) — Moscow could aim nuclear weapons at targets in Europe as part of “retaliatory steps” if Washington proceeds with building a missile defense system on the continent, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday.
Speaking to foreign reporters days before he travels to Germany for the annual summit with President Bush and the other Group of Eight leaders, Putin assailed the White House plan to place a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland. Washington says the system is needed to counter a potential threat from Iran.
The BBC reports on the reaction: Nato condemns Putin missile vow:
Russia’s threat to aim weapons at Europe if the US sets up a missile defence shield there was “unhelpful and unwelcome”, Nato has said.
The US says it wants missile defence in eastern Europe to counter threats from states like Iran and North Korea.
On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Iran was not a threat to the US, hinting that Russia was the target.
Not having enough to do, the Shrubbery and his “Soviet expert” at the State Department have decided to restart the Cold War. Who’s going to tell him that it had nothing to do with the actual temperature of the planet? Who’s going to tell him that no one believes that Iran is an existential threat to the US?
10 comments
This is very good timing with Putin threatening to re-target everything to Europe if Bush pushes ahead with putting missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland. It is also interesting that Bush chooses to bracket the summit with stops in the Czech Republic and Poland the same two countries where the United States wants to build a missile defense system for Europe. It is not going to help to poke Putin in the eye. That’s Bush diplomacy for you!
This is just stupid. There is no reason to kick up this fuss and annoy the Russians. Putin needs something to distract his population, and to deflect criticism of his power grabs. There’s nothing like an external threat to make people forget what their government is up to.
My 80-year-old German-American neighbor, who in her youth escaped Nazi Germany, chatted with me just a few minutes ago, as she often does. With a look in her eye that I wouldn’t want directed at me, she said, “That Bush wants to put missiles in Poland? What kind of nut [at this point, she literally pounded the table] is this guy?” Then she shook her head and said, “Putin is not someone to mess around with.”
If only we could persuade Bush to listen to someone like that who has been through hell, before he puts the whole world through hell again…
The Russians have their own version of neocons and this is playing to their paranoia. The people in charge all remember the Cold War and there is no love lost between them and the US.
The Shrubbery is wondering around the world kicking anthills and some of those ants bite.
fire ants come to mind…
These ants have thermo-nuclear war heads and an attitude. If we could have just let the sleeping bear alone for another five years under the neglect of the system, nothing in any of their silos would have bee capable of flight. Now they are going to put new, working missiles in the ground.
Damn. So that was the backstory to that one sentence in the story on page 5 of Le Monde this morning. Somewhat ironic, given that the same issue had a huge two-page spread (“Missiles in the ice”) on the 49th Missile Defense Battalion at Fort Greely in Alaska, complete with pictures. (And also chock-full of solid criticisms of Bush’s pet “missile shield” project, of which the 49th is an integral part.)
Land-based missile defense is a huge waste of money. The science doesn’t work for a number of reasons, and serious people know it. It is corporate welfare, plain and simple.
If they were serious about basing options, the tip of Scotland or a platform in the North Sea would be better sites, so the debris would fall in the water, not on European Russia or Scandanavia, if it were an Iranian missile.
At least according to the Le Monde article, that’s the backup plan in case they can’t get the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic authorized–they’ll just task the Alaskan base with Iranian stuff as well as North Korean stuff, after they modify existing radars in Greenland, Norway, and Britain. “Corporate welfare” was basically the critics’ take on the program as well, particularly given that the corporations that benefit from the $9 billion a year (up from $3 billion) that we’re wasting on this colossal boondoggle are all closely linked to the Shrubbery.
There’s a curvature of the earth problem trying to do this from Alaska, as well as a a few mountain ranges that would elevate the detection altitude to an unreasonable height, even if it were a feasible system.
Norway would work, but a North Sea platform would be the best solution for a lot of reasons.
Detection isn’t the real problem, it’s the interception phase that isn’t workable.