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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

More talk over a new cold war in Europe thanks to Bush and a few stupid Europeans who are willing to sacrifice the stability of Europe for a few lousy dollars.
 
The Bush administration says the bases are designed to shoot down rogue missiles fired by Iran or North Korea. Its proposed system would be helpless against Russia's vast nuclear arsenal, it says.
 
But this claim has been greeted with widespread incredulity, not just in Russia but also among some of the US's nervous Nato allies. They include Germany, where the Social Democrat leader, Kurt Beck, warned last month that the US and Russia were on the brink of another arms race "on European soil".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2054142,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2054119,00.html

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

More of the same ... much todo about nothing. Russia isn't in a postion to get in another arms race with the United States. The Germans are probably upset that someone else got this money, at a time when the United States is putting a plan in place to reduce our military strength in Germany, from one Corps-sized Division, to a reinforced Brigade.

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ORIGINAL: UtopianRanger

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

More of the same ... much todo about nothing. Russia isn't in a postion to get in another arms race with the United States. The Germans are probably upset that someone else got this money, at a time when the United States is putting a plan in place to reduce our military strength in Germany, from one Corps-sized Division, to a reinforced Brigade.

I absolutely challenge you on that. Being bankrupt...America is not in a position to get in a new arms race with anyone, either.

With the two fold effect of us continuing to borrow an excess of two billion dollars a day just to meet interest payments {not touching the principal} and other countries slowly divesting themselves out of the dollar ; weakening it as the uni-polar currency, I'd say the Russians with their vast oil reserves {and the price the per barrel today}and small debt they are carrying, are in a much better position to fund R&D for new weapons systems /development.



- R

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ORIGINAL: UtopianRanger
I absolutely challenge you on that. Being bankrupt...America is not in a position to get in a new arms race with anyone, either. 

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ORIGINAL: Sinergy

Read something last week in one of the magazines I read, I suspect Popular Mechanics, that the United States has 26,000 nuclear weapons to Russia's (technologically somewhat inferior) 27,000 nuclear weapons.

Of these 53,000 nuclear weapons.  Approximately 2,000 of the total are ready to launch.

I dont think either the US or Russia could afford another cold war.

Sinergy

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Technically the US isn't bankrupt. The national debt is high, but not in comparison to GDP. Americans are also by far the richest population in the world with a combined personal net worth of $55.5 trillion dollars. The US economy is also growing by about 3-4% every year. Compared to Europe where it is barely growing at all.

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Trade and budget deficits are obviously a problem, but investors and corporations are contributing that to the policies of the Bush administration and not exactly the result of weaknesses in the US economy. They are expecting the next president to be more fiscally responsible.

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If China and Japan recall the debt, then there would be some trouble but that will never happen because they would be killing their own economies in the process.

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By the way, my point had nothing to do with money. It has to do with the military technology gap. The Russians won't be closing that with oil money ... at least not in our lifetime.

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I've been taught the same thing.
 
Winning conventional wars seems to be the priority as of late, and some impressive technology is the result. Not to justify it, mearly to state that it exists.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Winning conventional wars seems to be the priority as of late, and some impressive technology is the result. Not to justify it, mearly to state that it exists.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

I'm not sure what you are challenging. Saying the Russians aren't in a position to get involved in an arms race, doesn't mean that the United States is. I didn't speak to that point, one way or the other.
 
By the way, my point had nothing to do with money. It has to do with the military technology gap. The Russians won't be closing that with oil money ... at least not in our lifetime.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

More of the same ... much todo about nothing. Russia isn't in a postion to get in another arms race with the United States. The Germans are probably upset that someone else got this money, at a time when the United States is putting a plan in place to reduce our military strength in Germany, from one Corps-sized Division, to a reinforced Brigade.

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ORIGINAL: cyberdude611

First off, Russia can't afford another cold war. They are selling their weapons like crazy to the highest bidder just to keep their economy afloat. So all this tough talk is more bark than bite. Plus its very typical language from Russia. Its nothing really out of the ordinary.

I think you are wrong here and many economists think so too. Just as military spending drove the American economy and technology forward it can do the same for Russian. The difference now is that it is the US with the bloated military sucking up much needed resources where in the cold war it was the USSR that had the bloated military sucking up much needed resources.

Second, It's not all America's fault. Over the past 5 years the European Union has been on a Russia-bashing campaign. They've bashed Putin continuously. Like the man or not, he was elected by more than 70% of the population. The problems in Russia are not just in their government, but the political culture of the people there need to change. They have never really been comfortable with democracy the way the west has been.

It is not all America's fault, it will also be the fault of any country that allows the US to site missiles on their soil.

I think people in Europe and America got a bit too far ahead of themselves after the fall of the Soviet Union. Democratic reforms were made, the government was made more favorable to democracy, and capitalism was introduced. But the population has really not yet started to run with the torch. There is still an awful lot of work and progress to be made in that country. And I think it would be better for the time being if the EU just backs off for awhile and let things cool off.

True, the west screwed Russia after the fall of the wall. Though it is the US that needs to back off, the EU can't back off because Russia is our neighbour.

Plus when Russia attacks the west, they attack America. They view America as the leader of the west because that's who their arch-enemy was during the Cold War. So that's who they are targetting even though Europe is the ones that are raising the tensions. If anything, Bush has been bashed in the US for not taking a harder stance against Putin.

Bush is raising the tensions by wanting to site missiles on the Russian border, it is aided and abetted by Poland and Czech which are considering allowing them.

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ORIGINAL: UtopianRanger

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By the way, my point had nothing to do with money. It has to do with the military technology gap. The Russians won't be closing that with oil money ... at least not in our lifetime.

The Russians have the Sunbeam cruise missile and some of the quietest, most sophisticated diesel attack submarines on the planet. Make no mistake…..they are formidable opponent. And they’ve read and understand Sun Tzu quite well ; what they can’t develop themselves, they’ll bribe and steal from us.

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I've been taught the same thing.

Winning conventional wars seems to be the priority as of late, and some impressive technology is the result. Not to justify it, mearly to state that it exists.

I would highly suggest going to ''The Kremlin.ru'' and reading some of Putin's{and his staff} translated speeches / news conferences, his stategy is brillant.

Just an overview:  Russia has taken the stance that extensive military outlay coupled with the investment of maintaining a huge standing army, is resource dumb. And with each new attack, followed by an occupation, only weakens the US and strengthens Russia.

Furthermore..... Ivanov, Putin's defense minister, has said more than once, that any attempt to attack or invade sovereign Russia will result-in / be followed-up-by a nuclear strike. In other words, they've gotten very smart not to invest their resources in extensive military outlay; they've instead learned to fight with stooges, dupes and proxies -- Which is what we should be doing.

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ORIGINAL: Sinergy

Read something last week in one of the magazines I read, I suspect Popular Mechanics, that the United States has 26,000 nuclear weapons to Russia's (technologically somewhat inferior) 27,000 nuclear weapons.

Of these 53,000 nuclear weapons.  Approximately 2,000 of the total are ready to launch.

I dont think either the US or Russia could afford another cold war.

Sinergy