So it beings

[Kärnfysikern]

Are these the first steps into new hostilites betwen Russia and the US? Do we realy want to return to a time where both countries has their finger firm on the trigger.

The most stupid thing any leader of america or russia can do is to endanger reduction of nuclear weapons. Its not that a war is likely, the risk of a accidental launch is just to big. There has already been far to many close calls. Thats why both america and russia needs to reduce the nuclear arsenals down to a few hundrad warheads. More than enough to be a deterant but not enough to endanger the whole world.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russ...reaty_999.html

Moscow may unilaterally abandon the agreement between Russia and the United States on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, the chief of the General Staff said Thursday. The former Soviet Union and the U.S. signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) December 8, 1987. The agreement came into force in June 1988 and does not have a specific duration.
"It is possible for a party to abandon the treaty [unilaterally] if it provides convincing evidence that it is necessary to do so," said Army General Yury Baluyevsky. "We have such evidence at present."

The INF treaty eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles). By the treaty's deadline of June 1, 1991, a total of 2,692 such weapons had been destroyed, 846 by the U.S. and 1,846 by the Soviet Union.

"Unfortunately, by adhering to the INF treaty, Russia lost many unique missile systems," the general said, adding that many countries are currently developing and modernizing medium-range missiles.

Demand for the INF treaty arose in the 1970s when the Soviet Union began to deploy what the West called SS-20 missiles.

These were two-stage, medium-range missiles, many of them mobile and hard for the United States to track or destroy. Since most SS-20s targeted Europe, they allegedly threatened America's NATO partners.

The U.S. administration under Ronald Reagan proposed the so-called "zero option," stipulating that if the Soviet Union scrapped all its ground-launched medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles, the United States would do the same and abandon its plans to deploy anti-missile defenses in Europe.

Seeking better relations with the West, ex-Soviet leader Gorbachev agreed to remove more than three times as many warheads and destroy more than twice as many missiles as Washington by 1991.

Baluyevsky's remarks could be interpreted as a strong warning to the U.S. regarding its plans to deploy elements of its anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and as a follow up to recent statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Putin said on February 10 that deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe could trigger a new arms race.

The Russian leader told the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy that the reasons the U.S. cited in favor of deploying a missile defense system in Europe are not convincing enough, as launching North Korean ballistic missiles against the U.S. across Western Europe would be impossible, given the required trajectories.

"This clearly contradicts the principles of ballistics. Or, as we say in Russia, it's like trying to reach your left ear with your right hand," he said.

Moscow strongly opposes the deployment of a missile shield in its former backyard in Central Europe, describing the plans as a threat to Russian national security.

Speaking at an annual televised news conference February 1, President Putin pledged to amend the country's military strategy in view of the new developments.

"We must think - we are thinking - of ways to ensure our national security. All our responses will be asymmetrical but highly effective," he said.

The Russian military chief said Thursday that Russia's participation in the INF treaty will depend on future U.S. moves on missile defenses.

"What they [the Americans] are doing at present, building a third missile defense ring in Europe, is impossible to justify," Baluyevsky said.

Washington has also recently moved its largest sea-based missile defense radar in the Pacific from Hawaii to the Aleutian Islands, not far from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.

[Kärnfysikern]

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Why_...fense_999.html

Why does Russia oppose so fiercely the deployment of U.S. ballistic missile defenses in Central Europe to protect NATO allies from any Iranian threat? A lengthy article published Tuesday in the Moscow newspaper Kommersant by Mikhail Barabanov, editor of Arms Export magazine, gives an important insight into Russian thinking.
First, Barabanov expressed skepticism that the Iranian threat is the real reason the new BMD system is going to be deployed with frontline radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Like the late Henry Ford, Barabanov argued that people have two reasons for doing what they do: a good reason and the real reason. In the case of BMD, a determination to fence Russia in is, he argued, the real reason.

"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," Barabanov wrote. "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."

As we have repeatedly noted in these columns, the U.S. anti-ballistic missile defense system currently being developed at enormous cost is not designed to defend the Untied States against a full-scale launch of ICBMs by Russia's Strategic Missile Forces with their multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle, or MIRV, warheads. And it could not do so.

Nevertheless, Barabanov argued that "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."

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin is pouring unprecedented funds from a treasury bursting with energy-export profits into modernizing Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, Barabanov struck an uncharacteristically pessimistic, or frank, note about Russia's long-term strategic prospects.

"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.

"The first 10 U.S. interceptor missiles in Poland will not make a serious dent in Russian nuclear potential for the first few years," Barabanov acknowledged. But, he continued, "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," Barabanov said. And that is why, he continued, "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."

In line with his other frank comments, Barabanov was also remarkably outspoken in his criticisms of the Russian diplomatic reaction to the proposed BMD deployments. Russian officials, "as usual, made a number of contradictory statements that amounted to the usual vague threats to 'take adequate measures,' boasting an unconvincing justification for their helplessness," he wrote.

"The Russian leadership had the same initial reaction to the expansion of NATO and the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic 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."

Finally, Barabanov appeared to argue that Russia should rely much more on its strategic clout as the world's greatest energy exporter of oil and gas combined than on its traditional strategic nuclear arsenal to retain a leading role in the world.

"For an 'energy superpower,' it is more important to be able to pump its energy resources westward than to maintain any strategic balances," he concluded.

Most western analysts would disagree with most of Barabanov's analysis. But it is of great value in explaining the background to the Russian alarm over the BMD program's extension to Europe and President Putin's broadsides against U.S. policies this past week in Munich and Amman. The United States remains on a collision course with Russia on this issue.

[Kärnfysikern]

The Bush admin is realy trying hard to make the world a safer place..

good reading for those that want to dish out 3bucks

Can Missile Defense Work?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arti...ticle_id=15132

The Growing Nuclear Danger
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arti...ticle_id=15604

Both written by Steven Weinberg, physics nobel laurate .