How much of a threat do you all see Russia? how about in 10 years? 20?
I just read yet another article about how they developed some new ICBM capable of holding multiple nuke warheads. It seems like every other month Russia has some bad ass new weapon or war tool.
Bush's bullheaded euro-missile shield plan that alienated russia, the blatantly rigged elections, EU being still strangled by dependence on Russian energy....It's kind of creeping me out.
multiple nuclear warheads. Damn..
Here's that article, btw.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071225/D8TOLIN80.html
Russia Successfully Tests New ICBM
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Dec 25, 2:23 PM (ET)
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
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MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's military on Tuesday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads - a weapon intended to replace aging Soviet-era missiles.
The RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its test warheads successfully hit designated targets on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula some 4,340 miles east, Strategic Missile Forces spokesman Alexander Vovk told The Associated Press.
Vovk said that the missile carried multiple test warheads, but refused to say how many. The Interfax news agency said the RS-24 is capable of carrying at least three warheads.
The Strategic Missile Forces said in a statement that the missile was launched from a mobile launcher.
It said the new missile was based on the Topol-M and built by the same design team - Moscow's Heat Technology Ins ute led by Yuri Solomonov. The RS-24 was first test-fired successfully in May.
"This missile is being created using scientific and technological solutions from the Topol-M missile which allows to significantly reduce time and cost of its development," the statement said.
Existing Topol-M missiles carry a single nuclear warhead and are capable of hitting targets more than 6,000 miles away.
The Strategic Missile Forces said the RS-24 missile is designed to replace Soviet-built missiles with multiple nuclear warheads, such as RS-18 and RS-20. Those missiles are known in the West as the SS-19 Stiletto and the SS-18 Satan.
"The RS-24's deployment will strengthen the Strategic Missile Forces' capability to penetrate missile defense systems and strengthen the nuclear deterrent potential of Russia's strategic nuclear forces," the statement said. "The RS-24 will form the backbone of the Strategic Missile Forces and safely ensure the security of Russia and its allies through the mid-century."
President Vladimir Putin has used windfall oil revenues to modernize Russia's military arsenals amid increasing tensions with the West. The Kremlin has fiercely opposed U.S. plans to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying they threaten Russia's security.
Russia is not a threat in the "blow up the world" sense. They are a threat in the "outflank American interests for wealth, power, and influence" sense.
But then again, wars are almost always fought over wealth, power, and influence, so I guess there is indeed a threat of annihilation.
Sleep tight. Check for Tsar Vladimir under the bed before you go to sleep.
The second sense is naturally what I meant to be implied
I don't see them as any less or more likely to blow up the world than us, but definitely not in the spookiness sense of cold war
by spooky i meant its crazy seeing a possible scenario where russia totally usurps our influence over domains now thought of to be fully under US influence
Russia wasted no time flexing their military muthle after this mithile shield thing, they're running exercises in the Mediterranean now, which I think would have been a bloaded attempt had we not skillfully handjobbed them back in the early-mid 90's, and now alienate them when they're regaining power
do you see them effectively hedging out america for something extremely vital, like dominant influence in europe? if so, when?
Im curious as to what others think on this
THey're already trying to beef up Iran so that the muslim world will look to IRan and not saudi arabia. after that, IRan and russia will probably try to commit covert missions to assassinate the Saudi princes and terrorize the kingdom to halt it's relationship with the US.
This cannot be good.
Twenty years down the road the chances of a former Soviet-era officials having power positions in russia will be almost nil.....do you think the new crop of leaders will change Russia's direction or will this new Putin era we are witnessing reimprint upon the people's minds a willingness to accept authoritarianism and a collective special need for Russia's own unique sphere of dominance?
You failed to mention how the Russians are tossing the Iranian's salad. Last week they sent some more uranium enriched rods to that power plant in Iran and today I heard they were selling the Iranians some new missle defense system.
They will choose neither but choade bloatations. huh huh huh!! Chooade!!!!
jk! he he
Honestly, the new russians will want freedom but not necessarily free market capitalism. But they might come in conflict with the ME due to cultural differences. But that's everyone.
I honestly think they will become a hardcore socialist state, almost fascist, but they will be more socially liberal.
Ehhh....Russia's not a problem. They can never become the Soviet Union again. It's a political impossibility...it doesn't matter if they make the best nukes in the world...they'd still get nuked off the planet if they attempted any sort of invasion...yes they'd nuke us back...but they've had that capability for 40 years now.
The thing is...Russia by itself does not have the food resources to be a Superpower...it has to expand to obtain the resources it needs to be a Superpower...and it can never do that again. In any way...even the Socialist parties of Western Europe won't ever want to cede that kind of authority again...they may ally, but it won't be the Soviet blok type of alliances. It'll be more capitalistic. And there are still enough people that lived under the suck that is communism to die fighting before ever going back to that again.
THe reason socialism has always run so strong there is that food is always ing limited...because it's ice and mountains.
If you go there...it's nothing but hothouses and run down real estate, the food sucks, I mean it is the tiest food in existence and the people are miserable...
Russia will never again be a powerhouse on the level that the Soviet Union was...they might be a souped up version of Germany with a military..but they won't be the Soviet Union ever again.
That's why they want to dominate the Ukraine.
They want to do a lot of things...but they really can't.
The world has changed so much since the Soviet Union was formed...that kind of expansion just isn't viable with the weaponry we have now...Great Britain by themselves could stop it. Even if the Russians have better weaponry, it still pretty much impossible.
I could definitely see a strong alliance there or a parent child relationship...but it won't ever be a unification type thing...too many political differences.
No...whatever weed comes up next in that region of the world....will be something different.
LinkRussia is preparing to sell to Iran anti-aircraft missile systems S-300, Iran’s defense minister said on Wednesday. This will be Russia’s second major contract with Iran on air defense systems in the recent years. Analysts say that Russia is thus countering plans of the United States for military interventions in the Middle East.
Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on Wednesday that the contract with Russia would deliver to Iran S-300 systems under a timetable to be announced soon. Russian arms trader Rosoboronexport and contract’s executor Antey-Almaz did not comment on the statement but did not refute it either. Sources of Kommersant said that Russia has agreed to sell to Iran five S-300PMU-1 complexes worth $800 million. A source in the military industry reported that the contract had not been signed yet but talks were in a final stage. He, however, said that S-300PMU-1 might as well be sold to Iran from the arsenal of the Russian armed forces after necessary updates.
Teheran hosted last week a session of the Russian-Iranian intergovernmental commission on military and technical cooperation where Mikhail Dmitriev, head of the Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service, made it clear that Russia was set to carry on cooperating with Iran in this field and added that this was necessary to preserve balance of forces in the region.
Contacts between Russia and Iran in military and technical cooperation got a major boost in early 2004 when Teheran asked Moscow’s help in creating a missile defense system. Moscow suggested using S-300PMU-1 systems for defense of the capital city and four other regions including industrial center Isfahan, main naval base in Bander Abbas (the Persian Gulf), the nuclear plant in Bushehr and oil terminals in Abadan and Khorramshar.
The Iranians and Russians got a wake-up call when Israel bombed the...well,... hole in Lebanon, since Lebanon was protected by a Russian radar and missile defense system and the Palestinians were reassured that they would detect in-coming Israeli fighter planes.....they failed miserably, some say with technology secretly provided by the U.S....
Radar is really quite easy to beat if you know the locations of the radars. Russia has always been in the market to ship arms anywhere and everywhere. Kinda like the US.
As far as the missles go - I'm not worried. No different than what they had before.
I agree with the basis of what you said but if the globe really is warming Russia stands to gain a ton of land that can be used for agriculture. That is very long term, but very likely as well.
I know they wont be as powerhouse as the Soviet Union, in fact, as of 1991 when they went down I don't think we'll ever see a single power as mighty as the US was when USSR went down, I see the world naturally reaching a point of stability.....what I mean by starting this thread is that do you see Russia being a problem in the sense like ES was saying, cuckolding all our global interests, possibly swaying the ME, China, EU, even closer to them and by definition further from us ,that kind of thing.
All these new bad ass weapons and military demonstrations by russia I realize serve many purposes, among them harnessing domestic nationalistic fervor, but the symbolic meaning towards the world--that can have a grave impact on US interests abroad, in a sense, its like this was a few hundred years ago and they really are attacking . With the new world order, demonstrations and arms racing such as this are IMO a modern country's way to combat the enemy. China and the chinese respect strength, and they can very easily be seeing us losing that, and Russia gaining it. If Russia managed to pull of a coup de grace and become hardcore allies with China (i realize the chances of this) don't you think the US, and the common US citizen would be ed?
Well...if you take a look around the world...
Where are all the ty governments...what do they nearly all have in common?
They are dependent on other nations for food...either by aid, or by import.
Money, shelter, everything...when push comes to shove, we are animals at heart...and nothing trumps food, not even sex.
So any government dealt the hand of more people than they can provide food for...is going to not only have a difficult time attaining superpower status...but staying in power peacefully and with the will of the people as well. Russia overcame this one by conquering regions that could provide food...they cannot do that again. Should they try...that county will mysteriously and quickly develop a potent nuclear arsenal.
Even if not...if they nuke a country...it will no longer produce food.
All the weaponry in the world...is not going to be an adequate subs ute for food. Since the state of modern weaponry is such that the ant can nuke the elephant as easily as the elephant can nuke the ant...and since they do not have the capability of producing enough food for their population...
It will be virtually impossible for Russia to ever attain anything close the status it once had...barring a tremendous decrease in their population..which actually is happening, they are one of the few industrialized nations with a declining population...
but by the time they get to the point to where they have a suprplus of food...their population will not be that needed to attain superpower status.
In short...
Food > Weaponry
Food > Oil
Food > Money
Food > everything else...till the day we no longer absolutely have to have it to survive.
If anyone on the forum wants to put this to the test...I am willing. I'll go without money oil and weapons..you go without food...let's see who wins that bet.
I think the Global Warming thing is overblown...but even if it isn't...Mountains the defacto North Pole are still going to be frozen and cold. If the day should ever come where that is not true...we will likely be dead or living in caves more concenred with our own needs that what is going on in Russia....likely tghey as well.
I believe Saudi Arabia is the 3rd greatest economy in the world...it does them good because they are 130 million Arabs living on ing sand...not enough food.
Now as for the middle east and Russias power in that region...
Although the media would like to portray otherwise...
They hate each other more than they hate us....so, say everyone of our current allies in the middle east was to switch sides...IMO, you could expect a proportional switching of alliances to ourside...becuase those guys hate each other more than they hate us...
Shias and Sunnis hate each other. Jews, Arabs and Muslims hate each other...Iraq and Iran hate each other...this isn't just all 20th century stuff either...some of this stuff goes back millenia.
And even more to our benefit...
The most civil ones, the most benevolent ones, the most sane ones, in that region, are civil, sane, benevolent because they aren't dictatorial regimes, and they can adequately provide for their people...so if any of them are likley to maintain an alliance, it's going to be an equally non-dictatorial regime, that can provide in a peacul manner, what they most need......and moral equivalancies aside...that's us, in a landslide.
For instance...say Russia was to suddenly align with our tightest ally in that region...Israel...you can bet, just about every country over there would align with us in retaliation. The impressive thing is that we have Arab/Muslim allies inspite of friendship with Israel..and we've done it without force...
Russia could never ever ever do that in a million years....they don't have the slightest idea how to pull that one off. They don't have the resources to pull it off..IE Food...Whatever they attained in the past was by force or by intrinsic hatred of the US...not by winning friends and influencing people with a good meal.
In short...Russia has always been a regional power, it is still that now, it will still be that in the future...but that's all it will be....until it gets some ing food to give to feed it's own people...much less give to others, as we do more than any other country in the world...being the world's top producer of food.
And Russia? Russia is going to be dependent on other nations for food for the forseeable future...
We probably should take more care in assuring that those we give food to know it's coming from us...because they don't really realize it.
Last edited by whottt; 12-27-2007 at 08:31 PM.
I agree yet again, but like you said, they're a regional power without question
it just so happens that that region is the most pivotal on the entire globe
and they're sitting in a good position as far as energy goes, so as long as that resource and their pipeline network exists, they'll always have money for food.
I think its very obvious Russia is trying its best to reshuffle the geopolitical deck within their reach while the US is being bogged down in war and losing global approval because of the results of those wars.
Even though they're dependent on the most precious of all resources, they have the ability to shake things up for us, kick us in the balls so to speak, and that could weaken us against current or future enemies.
Last edited by LaMarcus Bryant; 12-27-2007 at 09:19 PM.
Yeah but their power is limited to military aid...and they have their own needs. I guess I'm just saying Russia will not ever be that ample of a power, because they are not that ample of a provider. If Russia devoted half as much energy towards getting their own natural resources as they do attempting to control that region(which they do out of an innate desire to compete with us)...they'd be a lot more powerful than they are...
You know there are other things at play here...
I remember right after Sept 11th when a Russian Airliner crashed and they were saying they couldn't really figure out the wheres and whys and the US said...it was the Ukraine at this location and it was this type of missle...that was humiliating to Russia...so a lot of what you are seeing now is them just showing off. Same reason they spend so much time ing around in the ME when Oil is not something they really need(unless it's to power an expansionist military). Their greatest need is food not Oil...just so happens most of the mid-east countries have a similar dilemma...food, Oil is no problem.
It's like drug dealers hanging out with other drug dealers instead of drug users...not going to be a really powerful econmic connection...no matter how impressive the amount of drugs on hand might be....
So then as of today you don't envision any scenario in which russia stands in a position to seriously weaken the US in any crucial way
FWIW LaMarcus...if your ultimate point is that we should pay heed to Russia's technological advancement...I agree 100% there.
Definitely...I always think that. Always. Always. Always.
We should always strive to be the most technologically advanced nation on Earth.
I figure I've got one more term of Republican voting before that becomes a problem I can no longer ignore...desire to win the Iraq war and make good on us going into there for the better of the world and the ME, or not.
Mmm....no. We are much more better equipped for this kind of battle than they are...even moreso now than we were during the coldwar. That's why they lost the cold war...was attempting to fight this battle...and they had bigger edge back then than they do now...because military expansionism ruled, and it was their own backyard.
Like I said...those guys need food...Russia needs food. We're the worlds #1 provider of food. Russia doesn't have enough to feed it's own people. And the days of military expansionism are pretty much over until we get the next major leap in technology....something that renders nuclear weapons obsolete.
That's my take...I could be wrong but it's just the way it seems to me.
Saudi Arabia is never going to align with them...ever. Iran and Syria already are aligned with them...
I guess Jordan, Egypt and Iraq could...but Jordan and Egypt are virtually worthless anyway...Iraq OTOH...well it is kind of important. But Iraq needs food....
If Israel aligns with them we will suddenly find ourselves allied with every country in that region...
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